Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die
by Angry lil' elf
Summary: What if Spartan-B312 didn't die on Reach? What if he had somehow been transported to the world of Albion around the time Sparrow started her quest for revenge? Read to find out more. Noble Six/Sparrow pairing in this story. Will continue on into Fable 3 with Princess/Ben Finn romance.
1. Chapter 1

Fable 2: Spartans don't die

Rating: M15+ for violence, swearing, dark humour and sex.

Summary: What if Noble Six never died on the planet Reach? What if he was somehow transported to the land of Albion to help Sparrow in her quest for revenge? Read and find out. Noble Six/Sparrow pairing.

Angry lil' elf; yo waddup people!? It is Angry lil' elf again with a new story to throw a wrench in the works and I've got a good one for y'all today and don't worry I haven't abandoned my other Halo/Fable story this was just something cooking up in my brain and I decided to put it to paper and post it and see how many hits it gets, this story is kind of a 'what if?' story of how Spartan-B312 was somehow transported to the world of Albion around the time Sparrow embarks on her quest for revenge and having nothing better to do Noble Six joins Sparrow on her adventures.

The romantic pairing for this story is mainly Noble Six/Sparrow and of course Reaver being his promiscuous self and flirting with everyone, I'm imagining Sparrow to be looking like one of my favourite Victoria's Secret models, Doutzen Kroes and speaking with the same accent which I'll pass off as a gypsy accent to add a bit of flavour to the story, I'm still trying to work out the dynamic between Six and Sparrow, there will be some rivalry but equally there will be some flirting between the two and because Noble Six is meant to be YOU in Halo Reach, it gives me a bit of leeway to play with his character a bit, I've decided to make him a bit like Spike from Buffy, being this badass yet really funny and sweet at the same time, I've decided to name Six, Hal, purely because I have no imagination when it comes to that sort of thing but I… well… uhhh… err… right I'll just shut up now.

I also plan on having Six travel to other parts of Albion such as Silverpines and finding a few legendary heroic weapons for him to use such as the sword Wolfsbane, I'm imagining it to look Théoden's sword from Lord Of The Rings or maybe looking like Orcrist from the Hobbit movie but if you guys have any suggestions on what some of Six's heroic weapons should look like just tell me in your review or tell me via PM.

Now we begin;

Lieutenant Hal/Spartan-B312/Noble Six was running up the stairs to man the Onager where he last saw Emile go down fighting some Covies, Hal could hear Emile's laboured dying breaths as he ran up the stairs shooting any hapless Grunts that got in his way with his assault rifle.

An Ultra-class energy sword wielding Elite appeared in Hal's line of sight, charging at him, trying to prevent him from reaching the Onager, Hal rolled to the side dodging the plasma blade as it sheared through a metal wall where Hal was standing moments before.

Reacting quickly Hal brought out his combat knife, holding it in a reverse grip and stabbed into the sword wielding Elite's eye, the mandible faced creature uttered out a death cry as its eye and brain was pierced by the combat knife.

As the Elite slumped down on the floor gurgling its last breath, Hal looked at the energy sword silently debating whether to take it or not; deciding on the former, Hal took the energy sword, clipping it to his waist, Hal then raced up the stairs towards the Onager and where Emile was.

Hal then sighted Emile's slumped body propped up against a wall with his faithful kukri knife near his hand.

Hal gave a sigh and said to Emile's dead body "Rest well Emile, your death won't be in vain" he said and took Emile's kukri and sheath.

Manning the Onager, Hal fired shot after shot at the Covenant drop ships, so that they wouldn't get anywhere near the Pillar of Autumn, while waiting for the Covenant battle cruiser to come closer so he could fire off a shot at the glowing centre of it.

"C'mon you fucking split-lipped bastards, a little closer" Hal said as he fired off another shot at a Covenant drop ship.

"A littler more, a little more" he muttered as he aimed at the battle cruiser. The battle cruiser was now within range, Hal aimed as quickly as the Onager would allow him to, aiming for the glowing centre of it and opened fire; the Onager round screamed through the air and hit the glowing centre of the Covenant battle cruiser, causing an almighty explosion, thus clearing the way for Autumn to escape.

Sighing with relief that the Autumn was now able to get away but fully realising that he had doomed himself, Hal climbed out of the Onager cockpit and checked his equipment, weaponry and ammunition; so far he was fully stocked with four grenades of each type, he had a good supply of ammo for his assault rifle and DMR rifle, his sprint module was fully operational, his newly acquired energy sword had 90% power to it, he had his combat knife and Emile's kukri knife and his energy shields and MJOLNIR armour were fully operational.

Hal gave himself a cynical smile as he remembered an old saying when it came to the Spartans;

_Spartans don't die; they're just missing in action._

Making his way down to the ground, ready to meet his maker in glorious combat.

"C'mon, you split-lipped sods! Come and get me!" Hal shouted as he fired his DMR at some Grunts, scoring a couple of headshots, the Covies took note of Hal's presence and immediately began to converge on his location, swarming like maggots over a fresh dead body.

Hal took up position behind some ruined brick walls and picked off targets with his DMR, conserving his grenades.

Elites soon came onto the scene firing off salvos of plasma from the weapons, Hal fired off a few shots at them, trying in vain to take down their energy shields, an Elite surprised Hal by jumping onto the ground near him.

"Shit fuck!" Hal shouted as he unloaded a clip of his assault rifle into the Elite, at such close range the Elite's energy shields didn't last long and when the full metal jacket rounds met flesh, the Elite may as well have just written its own funeral eulogy.

Wraith tanks began to fire upon Hal's location.

"Fuck, why me?" Hal muttered as he prepared to meet his maker, ready to go down guns blazing, when suddenly he noticed a cave opening, not far from his position.

Seeing it as his only chance of escape from glassing, Hal primed two grenades, a frag and a plasma grenade, standing up in plain view of the Covies, Hal threw the two spheres of destruction as hard as he could at his enemies and ran for it as if the hounds of hell were on his feet.

Using his sprint module to make a mad dash for the cave entrance, Hal primed another grenade and as soon as he was past the entrance of the cave, he tossed it behind him and ran further into the cave.

The resulting explosion from the grenade caved in the entrance, leaving Hal in pitch black darkness, activating his helmet lights, Hal looked around his surroundings, so far the cavern was leading downwards.

"Well, guess downwards is better than up there" Hal muttered and he trudged down the earthy passage.

Keeping his assault rifle ready in front of him with the safety off, Hal looked around furtively as he progressed through the passage; soon Hal came to a strange room.

It was large and spacious and strangely an odd light was coming from the centre of the room, it was a stone dais; it bore a strange crest of an inverted S with two large glowing blue gems set in the stone on either side.

"Strange, the energy readings from this don't correspond with anything known to man, I wonder what it is? Maybe a Covenant energy source?" Hal asked himself.

Tentatively stepping onto the stone dais, Hal watched as the glowing seem to become brighter as he stepped onto the dais.

When he was standing in the centre of it, the dais then flashed with light and a burning sensation hit Hal; gritting his teeth in pain from the burning sensation, but the pain grew until Hal roared out with pain and passed out from the pain overload.

_Meanwhile…_

It had been ten years since Sparrow had left Bowerstone, ten years since the night her sister Rose had died at the hands of the madman, Lord Lucien, ten long years Sparrow had spent at the gypsy camp with her guide and mentor Theresa the blind seer and of course her faithful furry friend Sunny the Dog.

Theresa had tutored Sparrow in the ways of a Hero, how to wield a sword, a hammer, an axe, a mace, a pistol, a rifle and a crossbow along with other lessons. Sparrow was a quick learner and was eager to learn combat but was a little impatient and bored when it came to academic subjects such writing, arithmetic and such but Theresa was a patient teacher and let Sparrow learn at her own pace, so now Sparrow was intelligent… relatively.

Theresa had spoken with Sparrow and given some starting equipment, well they would barely able to call themselves equipment, the longsword was rusty, the crossbow was splintered and aged, the shovel looked as though it would break if it touched the soil, and the placebo health potion looked as though it was made of water and red food dye which it was probably made of.

On the plus side the Guild Seal that Theresa had given her looked to be in good condition. After departing for the outside world, Sparrow had some luck when Sunny smelled out some treasure consisting of an amethyst which looked like it could fetch a good price despite the fact that amethysts were a pretty common gem nowadays.

Taking a short swim to the Bower Lake Tomb and opening the door, Sparrow was a little surprised when she heard Theresa's voice in her mind, speaking to her through the Guild Seal.

Jumping down a hole into a large body of water with Sunny following close behind, Sparrow made her way to the nearest spot of dry land and proceeded into the next part of the cave.

After traversing through a passage, some beetles popped out of the ground giving Sparrow her first fight.

Sparrow drew her rusty longsword and prepared to fight.

The fight didn't last long, either Sparrow was a skilled fighter or the beetles were piss weak or maybe both, Sparrow gave a huff after the fight and said to herself "Is that all?" she asked rhetorically and proceeded further into the cave system.

After a few more beetles killed by either her sword or crossbow, Sparrow then came across a locked door with something called a 'flit switch' being the locking, heeding Theresa's advice and hitting it with her sword made the door open, opening the way.

Lightly jogging down the passage, Sparrow reached another door in the shape of a circular dais, there were two different flit switches, one being blue for the sign of Strength and the other yellow for the sign of Skill; using her sword and crossbow to hit the switches, the door opened and the way was open.

Proceeding further Sparrow was soon walking a stone pathway that didn't look as though it were part of a cave.

Theresa's voice spoke to her again _"You are now entering the remains of the Heroes Guild, it has been centuries since someone has entered these hallow halls and now… wait… there's something in there"_ Theresa's voice said, "Like what? Another person? Another Hero like me?" Sparrow asked.

"_Perhaps, it is something… strange yet strong, far stronger than a normal human but I do not feel any evil emanating from it, go inside and see what you can find out, but be cautious"_ Theresa's voice replied.

Sparrow proceeded to go inside with Sunny following whimpering in fear; Sparrow gave Sunny a reassuring scratch behind the ears to which he perked up and gave a happy bark.

Sparrow took out her crossbow and readied an arrow in it and walked cautiously forward further to see what had entered the Heroes Guild.

Sparrow gave a gasp at what she saw.

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die Chapter 2.

A/N; YO! Waddup people? It's Angry lil' elf again with the newest chapter of Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die, picking up where we left, we'll see Sparrow meet Noble Six and after a little confusion, Theresa will then enter the scene and after some explaining, Noble Six is recruited into joining Sparrow's quest for vengeance. We'll then see the two in action against Thag and his bandits and enter Bowerstone and we'll see if I wanna go any further than that.

For Superemopowerz; Six is wearing the CQC variant chest armour with Tactical/LRP vest to carry ammo, for the shoulders Six is wearing FJ/Para shoulder pauldrons, knees are FJ/Para knee guards and the helmet is a Mark V(B) MJOLNIR helmet and the UA attachments on both forearms are UA/Bracers and the kukri knife is sheathed on Six's left thigh and his combat knife is sheathed on his right shoulder and his visor is coloured silver and his armour colour is black. Hope that explains things for you :).

Now we begin;

_Sparrow's POV_

What Sparrow saw in the Chamber of Fate surprised her;

It was an armoured figure, lying prone on the floor and with some strange weapons lying near it.

Sunny growled uncertainly and Sparrow moved forward slowly with her crossbow at the ready and peered over at the figure, it was a strange looking figure, the armour didn't correspond with anything she had seen in books or pictures and the weapons were certainly strange, the rifles bore a resemblance to clockwork rifles but were sleeker, more compact and deadlier looking, a strange curved barbell handle was clipped onto the figure's right thigh and there were strange looking objects also clipped onto the waist.

Sparrow tentatively reached out with her hand to touch the figure's prone form but strangely her fingers stopped an inch before touching the armour.

The dark metal was smooth and plated and the other material that was shown in parts felt slightly rubbery and the helmet had a silver glass covering it where the face would be shown.

_Hal's POV_

Hal's eyes flickered open and his MJOLNIR's BIOS systems activated.

"What happened?" he muttered, his voice hoarse as though he had been shouting too much.

Suddenly a young woman's face entered Hal's vision, she was quite attractive to say the least, a well formed face, cerulean sapphire blue eyes, long chocolate brown hair, small button nose and full charming lips and she was a aiming a crossbow that looked as though it had seen better days.

Hal could hear a dog growling nearby and slowly sat up and looked to his supposed captor.

_General POV_

Sparrow took a surprised step back and aimed her splintered crossbow at Hal and asked in a quick nervous tone "Who are you? What are you doing here?" she asked quickly keeping her crossbow trained on the man.

Hal took note that the young woman spoke with a Netherlands accent, possibly a Friesland accent but he took note that she was aiming a crossbow at him.

Hal slowly put his hand towards his energy sword and said "Calm down, calm down, I'm not here to hurt you, so keep calm" he replied while keeping his hand on the handle of his energy sword, ready to activate it should the woman prove hostile.

Sparrow asked the armoured stranger "Who are you? And what are you doing here?" she asked in a calmer tone but still kept her crossbow trained on the man.

"I'm Lieutenant Spartan-B312 Noble Six of Noble Team and I was wondering where here is myself, who are you?" Hal asked.

"I'm Sparrow, I'm from the Bower Lake Gypsy Camp, I was exploring the tombs here, when I found you, so what are you doing here?" Sparrow asked.

"Not sure, I was in combat against the Covenant when I noticed a cave opening, I took it as an escape route and I found this glowing stone dais and I stepped on it and there was a light and then I woke up here" Hal explained.

"Can you call the dog off?" Hal asked as he noticed the dog growling at him, baring its teeth, Sparrow noticed Sunny growling at Hal and said "Sorry, Sunny, stop it, it's okay now" she said to her faithful dog.

Sunny looked at Sparrow and looked quizzically at her then looked at Hal, moved forward, sniffed him then gave a bark, declaring him to be safe… for the moment.

"So what are you doing here?" Hal asked, directing his question towards Sparrow, "I was exploring the tombs here, I was on my way to become a Hero and this was my first step, by entering this tomb" Sparrow replied as she shouldered her crossbow.

Hal stood up, he stood taller than Sparrow by a good head or two and he asked "A 'Hero'? What's a Hero?" he asked as he started to stretch his tired muscles.

"You don't know what a Hero is?" Sparrow asked as she watched Hal stretch.

"No, enlighten me" he replied.

"Perhaps I can enlighten you" a voice said.

Hal whipped out his DMR and aimed it where the voice had come from, out of the shadows of an archway a hooded woman stepped out, her eyes covered in a bandanna.

"Identify yourself civilian!" Hal barked, "Calm yourself, I am not your enemy but you would not want me as one either, I am Theresa and you are?" the blind woman asked.

"Lieutenant Spartan-B312, Noble Six of Noble Team, where am I?" Hal asked.

"You are in the land of Albion in what remains of the Heroes Guild in the Chamber of Fate where all the Heroes of legend are recorded on the very walls" Theresa said.

Hal looked around and noticed detailed pictures carved or painted on the walls of the cavernous room they were in.

"Okay, what sector of the milky way is Albion in?" Hal asked, Theresa cocked her head sideways slightly and said "I do not know what sector this world is in, but I assure you, Albion is far from where you were once before, Lieutenant" Theresa replied.

Hal sighed and said "Okay, what's a Hero? Your friend here mentioned the word before, what does it mean in this world?" he asked.

Theresa replied "A Hero is a person gifted in one of the three disciplines of Heroes; Strength, Skill and Will, rarely are Heroes gifted in all three such as my ward Sparrow here" she said.

Theresa then leaned forward as if scrutinising Hal "However you are different from normal humans, far different, if I knew otherwise I would say that you are a Hero" she said.

"I'm a Spartan" Hal said.

"Hmm… perhaps we will discuss this matter at a later date but for now we have more pressing matters at hand" Theresa said and directed her attention to Sparrow.

"Now little Sparrow, step into the light and let the power within you be awoken" Theresa said, Sparrow nodded and stepped into the pool light coming down from an opening in the ceiling.

The light around her began to glow an array of colours and Sparrow was bathed in light and she gave out a roar.

Hal made as if to move forward in case Sparrow as hurt but Theresa stopped him and said "Relax, she is not in any danger" she simply said as Sparrow slowly stood up and smiled brilliantly at Hal & Theresa and said breathlessly "I did it!" she said triumphantly.

Theresa gave a ghost of a smile and said "Indeed you did, now to leave this place, you must activate the cullis gate with a simple spell of any sort" she said pointing over to a strange low platform with a glowing centre in it.

Sparrow walked over to the platform and a flit switch appeared this time being coloured red, Sparrow looked at Theresa and asked "How do I activate it?"

"Merely find the power within you and channel it into a spell" Theresa answered.

Sparrow concentrated, trying to find the power within, bringing up her right hand, she focussed and channelled her will energy into her hand; slowly a small crackling ball of flame appeared in her hand, Sparrow gave a slight gasp and dropped her hand, the tiny ball of fire dissipated.

"Try again little Sparrow" Theresa encouraged, Sparrow nodded and brought her hand up again and concentrated, again the small ball of flame appeared in her hand, the flit switch seemed to glow a little brighter as if sensing the show of Will.

Sparrow then flung the ball of flame at the red orb, the fireball connected with the flit switch and it exploded in a kaleidoscope of sparks.

The cullis gate activated and a small pillar of glowing blue light now indicated that the cullis gate was ready to use.

Hal watched the whole thing with surprise, being raised on the principles of science, Hal didn't believe in magic but seeing a young woman conjure a ball of flame and fling it at a floating magic orb to activate a magic gate was eye-opening to say the least.

"Okay, I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore" he muttered to himself.

Sparrow then asked "Where will the gate take me?" she asked.

Theresa replied "The gate will take you to the top of Hero Hill and from there you must make your way to Bowerstone where I will meet you, once I have information on the Hero of Strength" she said.

Theresa then turned to Hal and said "And you Lieutenant, I do not yet know your role in this world but if you wish you may travel and be a companion for my ward or you may go your own way, the choice is up to you" she said.

Hal thought about it and said "Well I'll go with Sparrow and keep an eye on her but I'd like to know what I'm up against if I'm to go with her" he said in a voice that brokered no argument.

Theresa smiled her ghost of a smile and replied "Very well, it began when…" she started to explain what had happened to Sparrow and her sister in Bowerstone Old Town when they found a magical music box and fell to a man named Lord Lucien who killed Sparrow's sister and wounded Sparrow and disappeared, Theresa then took in Sparrow and trained her in the ways of a Hero so that she would have her vengeance against Lucien.

Hal understood Sparrow's need for vengeance, he had lost his entire family when he was little to the Covenant and willingly accepted the offer to become a Spartan III commando to take his revenge.

"Alright, I'll go with you Sparrow, looks like you need my help for your… quest" he said, Sparrow nodded and said "Alright, but don't get in my way when it finally comes to it" she said.

"Understood" Hal answered "Let's go."

Sparrow nodded and stepped through the gate and disappeared, Sunny followed after her.

Hal after a moment's hesitation stepped into the cullis gate and felt a strange sense of displacement and was pulled away from the Guild cave.

_On top of Hero Hill_

Sparrow, Hal and Sunny the dog were now on Hero Hill and they got a surprise when they encountered some very large beetles residing there.

Hal looked at the beetles in surprise, he didn't expect beetles to be so large in this world and they certainly looked hostile as they chittered and clicked their mandibles threateningly.

A beetle spat some nasty violet saliva at Hal, the saliva hit the energy shield layer and dripped off, burning the rough stone floor with a sizzle. Hal responded by bringing out his DMR and fired at the offending beetle, the round tore through the air and burst open the beetle, killing it.

Sparrow didn't waist anytime by flinging a fireball at some beetles, setting them alight with fire burning them to death before drawing her sword and charging at them.

Hal drew his combat knife and kukri knife, combat knife in his left and the kukri in his right and charged forward to attack the beetles with Sunny snapping at the beetles and barking angrily.

Sparrow swung her sword at the first beetle, scoring a hit on the creature, causing it to screech at the wound and retaliated by swinging a barbed leg at her, Sparrow blocked the attack with her sword blade and bisected the creature in half.

Hal moved fluidly between the giant beetles, making his attacks seem dancelike, holding his combat knife in reverse grip in his left hand for stabbing and his kukri knife for slashing and cutting.

Stabbing and slashing at the beetles, Hal made short work of his lot whilst Sparrow and Sunny short work of theirs.

Sparrow gave a slight huff of exhaustion and remarked "Well that was fun" she said dryly.

"Yep" Hal said as he stomped on a nearby beetle that was trying to get near "Where to now?" he then asked.

"Bowerstone, it's this way" Sparrow said and headed off down a narrow pathway that went down the stone hill, Sunny following his mistress closely, Hal walked behind them following Sparrow's lead.

Reaching the bottom of the hill, the threesome then went over onto the pathway and followed it up some hills and over a bridge.

Coming up to the crest of an incline they came up a blockade, burly looking man wearing clothing one would expect of a town guard with an iron katana sheathed on his back called out to them.

"Apologies citizens, the road is closed due to bandit activity, seems a right scoundrel named Thag has been harassing good law abiding people and we've been forced to close off this road until Thag's been dealt with, but if you're in a hurry like you could always deal with Thag yourselves" the guard said.

Sparrow gave a huff of frustration and muttered something about incompetent guards being too lazy to deal with bandits.

Hal then called out to the guard and asked "Where might we find this Thag person?" he asked, the guard replied in surprise "The Bower Lake cabin, that's where Thag and his men have set up camp, you're not gonna go there are ya?" the guard asked.

Hal, Sparrow and Sunny just turned away and began to set off down the hill, looking for the Cabin.

"So what's the plan Lieutenant?" Sparrow asked her companion, he replied "Simple we go in, and we eliminate Thag and his men, any questions?" he asked without looking at her, Sparrow gave a smile and said "Nope, no questions" she said and fondled the handle of her sword.

It wasn't hard to find the bandit camp.

The camp was situated in a small canyon like area on the shores of the lake with trees providing plenty of coverage and with wooden spiked walls and two gates, one being open the other being closed off.

Seeing as one being wide open, Sparrow and co. took the open route, not believing their luck at the camp being open but fully expecting some kind of trap or ambush.

The bandit camp was messy to say the least, empty bottles and ale barrels were littered everywhere, plates of half-eaten food and bones of miscellaneous animals were scattered about.

And over near the hut were two cage carriages containing some people that Sparrow immediately recognised as people from the Bower Lake Gypsy Camp.

One of the captives noticed Sparrow's arrival and yelled out "Watch out! It's an ambush!" the captive shouted.

As if on cue, men wearing ragged patched clothing, wielding tarnished or rusted weaponry dropped out of the trees.

A particularly rough looking bandit stepped forward and said "Well lookee here boys, fresh meat" he said coarsely, the bandits sniggered and chuckled roughly and fondled their weapons.

The bandit spokesperson then said to Hal "Now how 'bout you surrender yourselves right now and don't worry we'll return your precious morsel back to ya… after a few hours right lads?" he called, the rest of the bandits laughed uproariously and leered at Sparrow lecherously.

Hal just took out his DMR, aimed at the bandit spokesperson and shot him in the head; the bandit dropped to the ground stone dead, this shocked the other bandits and one remarked in shock "He killed Jimmy! He owed me money!" with a roar the bandits charged forwards weapons drawn.

Hal just brought out his assault rifle and fired a volley of hot lead at them, the rounds hitting their mark, giving them pause for thought and much pain, a few dropped dead from their wounds, others just kept charging.

Sparrow drew her sword and charged forward to meet them, loading a fresh magazine into his assault rifle, Hal shouldered it and drew his knives and moved forward to engage the hostiles.

Sparrow slashed at the bandits' leering faces, rewarded with cries of anguish and pain, a bandit managed to score a hit, nicking Sparrow on the arm, this only served to enrage Sparrow as she began to press her attacks.

Hal dealt with the bandits easily enough; they were poorly armed and even poorer fighters, tending to rely on superior numbers to overwhelm their opposition, but against a fully trained super-soldier of the UNSC, they had about as much chance as an icicle in a raging inferno.

Using his combat knife to parry attacks and his kukri knife for offence, Hal's knives were an extension of his arms and weaved a deadly flurry of death dealing strikes, chests slashed, hearts pierced, windpipes cut and limbs, hands and fingers shorn off, the bandits didn't last long against Noble Six of Noble Team.

Sunny the dog helped out too, by leaping onto bandits and tearing out their throats and biting the exposed legs of bandits, bringing them down to the ground, leaving them open for Sparrow and Hal to finish off.

As soon as the last bandit was finished off, Sunny ran over to the cabin door and growled at it, a voice was heard from within.

"You stupid dumb-fucks! Can't rely on anyone to do anything properly, have to do it myself!" the voice roared out.

With a splintering crash, the flimsy wooden door was broken into pieces and a large imposing man wearing a stag skull as a headdress stomped out wielding an iron cutlass, booted Sunny heavily to one side and roared out "Nobody defies Thag the Impatient! I'll teach ya to…"

BANG!

"ARGH!"

Thag cried out in pain and he clutched his left shoulder and looked at Hal who was aiming his DMR levelly at him and said in anger "You interrupted me speech!"

Hal replied "I haven't got time for speeches, so shut-up and fight!" he barked.

Thag roared out a battle-cry and charged forward, swinging his cutlass in wide arcs, Hal gave a sigh of boredom, it seemed that no-one on this world was trained properly on how to fight, this brute seemed to be relying on brute strength to carry him through his fights.

Sparrow moved forward to engage Thag in combat, Thag was certainly big and strong but he wasn't skilled or fast, so Sparrow ducked & weaved the attacks and slashed periodically at the bandit chief, causing some wounds that only enraged Thag further and became more… well… impatient.

Thag managed to score a hit on Sparrow by booting her heavily in the chest, making her fall on her back.

Sparrow backed away from Thag as he stalked towards her, "I'm gonna stick like a stuck pig!" he growled and prepared to deal a mortal blow upon Sparrow.

Hal stepped in with his knives drawn and launched a flurry of attacks, Thag's skill with a blade was extremely poor and could hardly block the attacks from Hal and soon he was on his knees bleeding heavily.

Thag knowing he was beaten snarled up at Hal "Ya gonna kill me? Well go on then! Do it! I ain't got all day!" he snarled.

Hal looked at Sparrow as she was getting up and asked "Do you want me to kill him?" he asked.

Sparrow replied by swinging her sword at Thag's neck, shearing through flesh, veins and bone, effectively cutting off the bandit chief's head.

Hal's eyes widened a bit behind his helmet visor and he remarked "I'll take that as a no" he said dryly.

The literally captive audience cheered and one prisoner said "There's a key for the cages in Thag's cabin; it's in a chest" he said.

Hal nodded and began to look inside the cabin for a chest, while Sparrow attended to Sunny who was injured by Thag kicking him.

Sparrow applied some Dog Elixir to Sunny's injury and after a few moments, Sunny was fully healed and he barked happily.

Hal soon found the chest he was looking for and opened, he discovered the key for the cages and some rancid looking beef jerky, throwing aside the beef jerky, Hal walked out of the cabin and met a strange sight.

Another bandit had turned up.

Sparrow levelled her crossbow at the bandit and barked out a question "Alright, who are you and what do you want?" she asked in a cold tone.

The bandit sneered at her and said "It doesn't matter who I am, all I want are the slaves, I paid for 'em. Look I don't want any trouble, if you give me the key now; I'll make it worth your while" the bandit offered.

The offer of gold did sound awfully tempting to Sparrow but she knew these innocent people from her days in the Gypsy camp.

Before Sparrow had a chance to reply, Hal stepped in, his kukri knife drawn and in a movement that no-one could follow, he sliced off the bandit's head.

"Hey! I was gonna say no, y'know" Sparrow said indignantly, Hal replied "Right."

"Well I was" Sparrow said defensively, Hal was busy searching the decapitated bandit's pockets and turned up a good sized pouch of gold and tossed it to Sparrow, Sparrow caught it with surprise and counted out how much was in the purse.

A hundred gold crowns seemed like a good amount to Sparrow, maybe she could replace some of her equipment like her rusty sword and splintered crossbow and maybe have enough left-over for a pint of ale.

Hal then opened the cages with the key and the prisoners cheered out their gratitude.

One former prisoner asked Hal for his name, Hal's reply "It doesn't matter who I am, I'm just a soldier doing what's right, nothing more" he said and left the area with Sparrow, heading back to Bowerstone road.

As soon as they reached Bowerstone road, traders and gypsies were now travelling along it as the blockade was lifted.

The guard posted at the blockade remarked "Apparently someone dealt with Thag and his gang, I'd like to shake the hand of the person who did it" he said and then proceeded to walk onto Bowerstone road.

Sparrow gave a small huff of amusement and said to Hal "Well shall we?" she asked offering her arm for Hal to intertwine his.

Hal said with some warmth in his voice "Certainly madame" and intertwined his arm in Sparrow's and the pair with Sunny following closely behind them, then travelled to Bowerstone.

_To be continued…_


	3. Chapter 3

Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die Chapter 3

A/N: hey everyone it's me again, back with another chapter of this new Halo/Fable story, in this chapter we'll see Six and Sparrow learn of the Spire and make their way to Oakfield encountering bandits and hobbes before finally reaching Oakfield. Just a couple of quick changes I've decided to make Sparrow look more like South African Victoria's Secret Angel Candice Swanepoel, because to me, she is beautiful, charismatic, fun, bright, charming, sexy and I think it'd be more fitting if she was Sparrow in this story.

Now we begin;

Walking along the road, Sparrow, Hal and Sunny the dog soon came to the fair town of Bowerstone; as soon as they reached the town gates, a funny looking man wearing the clothing of a gypsy and a funny hat ran up to them.

"Ah it's you two!" the man gushed "The Hero of Bower Lake and the Soldier!" he said excitedly.

Sparrow and Hal looked at the man questioningly and Hal was the first to speak "I'm sorry, who are you?" he asked.

"Oh sorry, I'm Roland, I'm a bard, if you didn't know and I heard about what you two did to Thag and his bandits and I thought I should take it upon myself to write songs about your exploits" the man explained.

"Well it's my first song, I'm just starting out and you two seem like a good start as any" Roland added apologetically "I just need some inspiration to start my first song, if I followed you two around town I could get some inspiration, if you'd let me of course" Roland said.

Hal looked at Sparrow and shrugged his shoulders and Sparrow shrugged her shoulders in response and proceeded to enter Bowerstone, Roland took this an invitation to follow them around and be their guide to the city.

Having a guide to the city was good for Hal as he needed to know the lay of the land if he was to be Sparrow's companion.

Roland gave the two companions details about notable points of interest all the while he was composing songs as he went.

Soon they came up to the Blacksmith's.

"Ah the Blacksmith's, friend of any adventurer, you can buy all sorts of weapons, good solid Bowerstone steel" Roland said.

Hal noticed a sign in front of the Blacksmith's; taking a look the sign read: _Wanted; someone to smith swords and other weapons, good gold paid for each weapon forged, speak with Tim the Blacksmith inside for details_.

Hal looked at the sign and thought about it, _Well I'm gonna need money to get by in this world and smithing seems like a good way to start earning a bit of cash, so might as well give it a shot_ he thought and walked inside the shop.

Sparrow was already inside the shop haggling with supposedly the blacksmith about exchanging her weaponry for some better ones.

Sparrow had managed to get the blacksmith to buy her rusty sword and splintered crossbow to use as scrap materials and bought with some of her gold a good steel sword and an iron clockwork rifle and left the shop to see if she could change her current clothing for something better.

The blacksmith noticed Hal standing inside the shop and asked "Anything I can help you with stranger?" he asked in a north London working class accent.

"I saw the sign out the front, I was wondering if you could hire me" Hal said, not beating about the bush.

"Ah yes, I was hoping someone could help me out with these orders by forging a few weapons for me, how strong are you lad?" the blacksmith asked.

"Strong enough sir" Hal replied, "Good answer lad, I'm Timothy Briarheart, but everyone calls me Tim the Blacksmith, what's your name?" Tim asked.

"Lieutenant Spartan-B312, Noble Six of Noble Team, but that probably doesn't mean anything to you though" Hal replied.

"A lieutenant eh? Are you part of an army somewhere?" Tim asked.

"You could say that" Hal replied "Are you gonna hire me or not?" he then asked.

"A man of action I see, you can start right now if you like, I'll just get you to start simple like, hammering those blades into shape first and we'll see how you go" Tim said.

With some basic instructions on how to hammer the blades into shape, Hal got started on smithing some basic daggers.

It was fairly easy work, just hammer the blade this way, then hammer it that way, Hal then fell into a pattern of hammering blades when he heard Sparrow's voice calling out to him.

"Hey Lieutenant! Come out here, Theresa's here!" Sparrow's voice called out.

Hal then hammered the blade he was working on one last time and went up to Tim the blacksmith and said "I'm finished sir" he said.

Tim remarked "Aye that you are, you've nearly finished the entire order and then some, as promised here's your pay" he said and passed Hal a good sized pouch heavy with gold.

Hal counted it out quickly, it was roughly over eight-hundred and thirty-two crowns, Hal then said to Tim "Sir I think you paid me too much" he said politely.

Tim gave a small laugh and replied "Like I advertised, I pay good gold for good work and you my friend went beyond that, you did excellent work so you get excellent gold" he said.

"Hmm, can I at least buy something then?" Hal asked.

"Name it" Tim replied and showed Hal what he had on for sale.

Hal went through the entire stock-list, everything from longswords, cutlasses, hammers, axes, maces, cleavers and katanas to crossbows, flintlock, turret and clockwork firearms.

Buying a simple steel katana, Hal then looked over the firearm ammunition; it seemed the clockwork ammunition looked to be the same make and calibre of his own rifles, albeit of inferior quality but beggars can't be choosers so Hal bought a good box load of clockwork rounds.

Paying for his purchases, Hal then proceeded to head outside and when he saw Sparrow or more specifically what she was wearing, made his eyes widen and his jaw drop slightly; Sparrow had had her dark brown hair done in long flowing tresses accentuating her face, she was wearing a form fitting blouse and jacket which hugged her bust and body, tight deep blue leather pants that hugged her buttocks, hips and waist, Hal hadn't noticed Sparrow's athletic yet curvy body frame and to top it off, she was wearing knee high heeled boots that elevated her body a few inches.

Hal didn't know much about modelling but if Sparrow was in his world, she would've earned a hell of a lot of modelling contracts with a face and body like that. Seeing Sparrow dressed like that so well sent some strange yet familiar feelings and thoughts inside Hal's head.

Hal shook his head and got his mind back into military mode and he walked over to Sparrow and Theresa.

Theresa said "Ah you are here Lieutenant, good. I have found more information on the Hero of Strength but first you must know about your enemy, Lucien, come with me" she said and started to walk down an alleyway with Sparrow, Hal and Sunny following behind.

Coming up to a view of the ocean but strangely in the distance, Sparrow could make out a strange looking building; it looked as though it was in the progress of being built from the ground up.

"That is where Lucien is, the Tattered Spire, centuries ago the Spire was built by the Archon of the old kingdom as a conduit for all the Will in the world, so powerful it was able to bend reality, upon its completion the first wish was made; everything was wiped out, entire cities destroyed in an instant, some say that this was the first wish, for a purer world to replace a corrupt and hollow one" Theresa said as Sparrow and Hal looked at the distant building.

Hal didn't like the sound of that, something like that could be used to deadly effect, and what if the Covenant, if they were here, heard of this Spire weapon? Hal certainly didn't like the thought of that idea but was shaken out of his reverie by Theresa's voice.

"Lucien found documents' saying that there would one who could stop him accomplishing his plans; that is why your sister died that night in the tower Sparrow" Theresa said to Sparrow.

Sparrow nodded and said "What must I do to stop him?" she asked her voice resolute.

"You must find three Heroes, each one representing one of the three skills, first you must find the Hero of Strength, often walking the path of faith takes great strength, journey to Oakfield that is where you'll find the Pilgrim" Theresa said.

Theresa then turned to Hal and said "I have something for you that you may find useful Lieutenant, take these" she said passing a pair of gauntlets to him.

Hal took the gauntlets and looked at them; they were old but well made, covered with runes that he couldn't identify and there some gems set in the middle of the palms.

"What are these?" Hal asked.

"They are a creation from the hey-day of Heroes created by the Hero Scythe, they are able to give people the ability to use Will magic, I thought they would be useful to you" Theresa replied.

"Will they interfere with my armour systems?" Hal asked.

"I should imagine not, merely put them on & you will be able to use Will" Theresa said.

Hal slipped the gauntlets over his armoured hands and felt a rush of energy flow into him.

"Thank you" Hal said, Theresa gave a ghost of a smile and nodded her head and said "Now go to Oakfield, you must find the Pilgrim before Lucien's agents do" she said.

Sparrow and Hal nodded and began to walk out of the alley with Sunny following.

"It's getting dark, we should stop at the inn and get some rest, we'll start early in the morning" Hal said, Sparrow nodded and murmured an agreement.

Stopping in the inn called the Cow and Corset, Sparrow, Sunny and Hal walked up to the bar and got the landlord's attention.

"Excuse me sir" Sparrow said, the landlord turned, gave her a big smile and asked "Good evening miss, what can I do for you?" he asked as he wiped the bar clean of any spills.

"Two rooms for the night, some dinner and an early breakfast in the morning to go" Hal answered before Sparrow had a chance to.

The landlord nodded and replied "Right, that's 6 crowns for the rooms, 14 crowns for the dinner and another 14 crowns for the breakfast, that's thirty-four crowns altogether" the landlord said, calculating the total price, Hal handed over the gold and the landlord gave them a selection of what was on the dinner menu, Sparrow picked a simple beef stew and tankard of ale, while Hal took a beef pie and ale.

Ushered to a table where Sparrow sat down on her chair but Hal didn't sit down, Sparrow looked at Hal and asked "Why are you standing?" she asked.

Hal replied "My armour and I happen to weigh a tonne if I sit down I'll break the chair" he stated.

Sparrow's eyes widened a bit and she said slightly awestruck "You must be really strong to be able to move around in that armour if it weighs that much" she said eyes wide.

"Part of the augmentations, I'll tell you more someday" Hal said as the food was brought.

With a snap and a hiss, Hal's helmet came off and set his helmet down on the table and began to eat his food.

Sparrow gaped slightly at Hal's face, he had never shown it before and here she was seeing it for the first time; his hair was a snowy platinum blonde colour, cut short and slicked back, his face was angular and aristocratically handsome, a couple scars on the face didn't detract the appearance but enhanced it, pale skin and sky blue eyes that captivated Sparrow.

Hal noticed Sparrow staring at him and said "Uh… are you gonna eat Sunny's dinner later?" he asked pointing at Sunny who was licking up some of Sparrow's dinner.

Sparrow noticed what Sunny was doing and pushed him down onto the floor and gently admonished Sunny for trying to eat her dinner, promising to give him a treat before bed if he behaved all the while trying not to think about Hal's handsome face and what it was doing to other parts of her body.

Sparrow quickly ate her food in silence as did Hal, after the last drops of stew and crumbs of pie were finished, they quickly downed their drinks in silence.

"Well good night, Lieutenant, I'll see you in the morning" Sparrow said before whistling to Sunny who followed his mistress to the bedrooms upstairs.

"Good night Sparrow, I'll wake you in the morning" Hal said to Sparrow's retreating form but couldn't help notice the sway of Sparrow's naturally curvy hips, more strange yet familiar thoughts popped into Hal's head, shaking himself to rid the thoughts, Hal put his helmet back on his head and headed upstairs to the bedrooms.

_Later, the next morning…_

Sparrow was gently shaken awake by Hal.

"Mmmff… what time is it?" Sparrow murmured blearily as she slowly opened her eyes but suddenly realised that it was Hal who woke her and she wasn't wearing anything other than some simple panties and a bra, this quickly woke her up and she quickly pulled the covers up to cover her modesty.

"Lieutenant! I'm half naked here" she said indignantly as she pulled the covers up to cover her chest.

Hal said "Sorry but I did say I would wake you, breakfast is ready downstairs" he replied and he exited the room, closing the door behind him, Sparrow gave a sigh of relief as the door closed & got out of the bed she was sleeping in and got dressed in her clothing and woke up Sunny who was sleeping at the foot of the bed and headed downstairs for breakfast.

Walking down the stairs to see Hal eating a plate of bacon, beans and scrambled eggs and a glass of fruit juice and asking the landlord what java was.

Hal looked on the menu at what java was and was curious; he asked the landlord what java was, the land lord replied that it was a hot drink made from a special bean that contained caffeine and was generally drunk by those who had to get up early in the morning and needed something to wake them up, it was becoming popular with nobility apparently.

Hal identified it as coffee and ordered a cup for himself and another for Sparrow if she wanted to try some.

Sparrow sat down at the table and ordered a plate of bacon, beans and eggs and tucked into it as soon as it was brought down.

As soon as that was finished, two steaming mugs were brought to the table, Sparrow asked "What are these?" she asked as she looked at the dark liquid in her mug.

"It's called java, back where I come from it's called coffee, it's a hot drink that helps people wake up in the morning, try it" Hal said.

Sparrow took a small sip of the drink and swallowed; it was a bit bitter but not unpleasantly so, taking another sip, Sparrow felt the caffeine race into her system and wake her up, after a few more sips, Sparrow had finished her drink and waited for Hal to finish his.

Hal then asked her "Well, are you alright from your first try?" he asked slightly concerned as he looked at the slightly shaking form of Sparrow.

"Yeah, I didn't expect it to have that sort of kick but I liked it" Sparrow said in a slightly jittery voice.

Hal gave a small smile and replied "Good, now let's go, I've looked at the map here, it said that Oakfield is a day or so travel if we walk and we need to buy some food for the journey" he said.

"There's a couple of food stalls in Bowerstone Old Town, the road to Oakfield leads out from there" Sparrow said.

Sparrow, Sunny and Hal then left the inn and headed along the road to Old Town.

_In Old Town…_

_Old Town has certainly changed_ Sparrow thought as she looked around the much improved conditions of Old Town, the people were wearing better clothing, the children better fed and gardens were in front of houses making everything look serene and happy.

"Sparrow! Is that you?" a voice asked, Sparrow looked around to see a broad strong looking man wearing the clothing of a sheriff walking up to her and Hal.

"It is you!" the sheriff said jovially.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Sparrow asked politely puzzled.

"Ya don't remember me? It's me! Derek! From the old days?" the sheriff said.

A flash of recognition went through Sparrow's eyes and she exclaimed "Derek?" she said incredulously "What happened to you?" she asked.

Derek smiled broadly and replied "After you and your sister brought me those warrants, I cleaned up Nicky the Nickname's entire gang and Lucien promoted me to sheriff, but of course he disappeared afterwards"

"But look at you! A proper adventurer, that sister of yours would be so proud" Derek added.

"But I recognise what's in those eyes; goodness, decency and respect for the law" Derek added further.

Derek then noticed Hal standing to the side watching the interaction with mild interest.

"Who's your friend Sparrow?" Derek asked.

"Oh, sorry, this is my friend Lieutenant Spartan-B3-something or other and he's my companion" Sparrow replied.

Derek stuck out his hand to shake Hal's, Hal shook hands firmly with the sheriff, careful not to crush the man's hand.

"Nice to meet you, Lieutenant, Derek, sheriff of Bowerstone Old Town, at your service" Derek greeted cheerfully as he shook Hal's gauntleted hand.

"Nice to meet you too sir" Hal replied shaking Derek's hand firmly, careful not to break the man's hand with his strength.

Breaking off the handshake, Derek then said "Now as you're the friend of the sheriff, you'll get a discount at all the stalls here in Old Town and that same offer extends to your friend here and that sister of yours if she's around, see ya later" Derek said and marched off to attend to his duties.

Sparrow shrugged at Hal and proceeded to find a food stall to buy from.

After ten minutes, Sparrow and Hal bought some necessary food supplies to last them a few days and proceeded to leave Old Town walking on the Oakfield road.

_After an hour or so of walking…_

It had just started to rain as the trio were walking along the road, suddenly a man wearing simple villager's clothing came running down the road yelling in a panicked voice "Ahhh! Bandits!" the man yelled as he ran past them.

Sparrow watched as the man ran down the road out of sight, looked at Hal and said "What do you think?" she asked.

Hal replied "Be ready" he said and unclipped his DMR from his back; Sparrow brought out her clockwork rifle and cocked the firing hammer.

The three walked down the road cautiously and soon came to an open area with a cliff.

Sparrow was about walk forward more, when Hal stopped her, "Why are we stopping?" Sparrow asked.

"Look at the area here, those cliffs; perfect for a sniper, we walk in and suddenly we're out in the open, no cover to hide behind, it's a common military tactic, whoever leads the bandits here has a good idea of what he's doing" Hal said as he searched the cliffs for signs of the bandits.

"So what do we do?" Sparrow asked as she started searching the cliffs for signs of bandits and caught sight of one poking his head out from behind a wooden wall.

"Let me go in first; I'm wearing a tonne of armour plus energy shielding, I'll have more of a chance lasting longer than you… no offence" Hal said when he noticed the questioning arched eyebrow of his companion.

Sparrow sighed and said "I suppose you're right, you go in first, just be careful" she said as Hal started to slowly walk forward.

As Hal walked forward, bandits popped out from their hiding places, armed with rifles and began to fire on Hal.

The inferior rounds flicked harmlessly against Hal's energy shield, Hal brought out his DMR and began to return fire, full metal jacket rounds streaming through the air to hit their targets in various parts of their bodies.

"Sparrow, move up!" Hal shouted.

Sparrow wasted no time in running out to Hal's position and firing upon the bandits, keeping their heads down.

"Sparrow, go up the side and attack the bandits, I'll give you some cover fire from here" Hal said, Sparrow didn't argue and ran to where Hal said to go and drew her sword.

As soon as she was near the sides, Sparrow charged the bandits taking cover behind the rocks; the bandits were caught by surprise and didn't last long against Sparrow's onslaught, soon all the bandits were lying dead on the ground.

Hal walked up behind and observed Sparrow's handiwork and remarked "Nice work, you're a natural at this" he remarked as Sparrow wiped her sword blade clean.

Sparrow turned around to look at Hal and replied "Well I couldn't have done it without you giving me some cover fire" she said modestly, Hal just cocked his head sideways slightly and shrugged and murmured something about continuing onwards to reach Oakfield before sunset.

Sparrow, Sunny and Hal then walked down the path leading to another area filled with bandits lounging around, drinking bottles of firewater or just sleeping.

"Well they haven't seen us yet, so if we play this real careful, they'll never see us coming" Hal whispered as knelt down on the ground to avoid the eyesight of the lounging bandits.

"What do you have mind?" Sparrow asked as she knelt down beside Hal and Sunny lay on the ground beside them, head down.

"Let me take them out, one by one, they'll never see me coming" Hal said.

"Can you take them all out without them noticing?" Sparrow asked as she watched the bandits, but didn't receive a reply, looking to where Hal was, Sparrow saw nothing and after a moment looking around, she saw Hal stealthily crawling his way towards the bandits.

Hal stealthily crawled his way to the closest bandit and drew his kukri knife from its sheath; moving slowly behind the lounging bandit, Hal reached out with his empty hand and as soon he was in reach, Hal clamped his hand around the bandit's mouth to prevent him making any noise and with his knife, slit the bandit's throat.

The bandit gurgled silently, the light fading from his eyes and slumped to the ground dead, Hal then manoeuvred the bandit's dead body to make it look like he was sleeping and moved onto the next one.

Another bandit's throat was slit and killed; this pattern repeated itself until all the bandits were dead on the ground, never to harass innocent people anymore.

Hal then called out for Sparrow to move up.

Sparrow made her way to the ground and observed Hal's work and remarked offhandedly "Nice work, who taught you how to do all that?" she asked.

"I had good teachers" Hal replied, "C'mon let's go, before anymore bandits show up" he added and the three left the area.

After about ten minutes of walking, Hal, Sparrow and Sunny came up to the bridge only to find it a complete wreck, over the other side, three bandits were keeping watch.

One bandit wearing and eye patch noticed them and said "Hey boys! Look what we got here; more travellers" he said to his fellow bandits.

The second bandit wearing a headdress cackled and shouted to the trio across the gap "Hahaha, you'll have to jump to get across!" he cackled.

He and the third bandit then started chanting "Jump! Jump! Jump!" they chanted.

The first bandit then shouted "Dive!" he shouted stupidly, the other two bandits looked at him dumbfounded and one said to him.

"You always have to be different, Jack!" he snarled.

Hal and his two companions looked down at the water below and Hal said "Well, looks like we'll have to jump into the water to get across" he said, Sparrow nodded and grabbed a hold of Sunny and said

"Ready when you are, Lieutenant" she said.

"Alright, three, two, one" Hal counted down and jumped off the remains of the bridge, with Sparrow and Sunny following.

The rushing sound of wind raced past Sparrow's ears and soon she felt the water swallow her and Sunny.

Bobbing up to the surface, Sparrow looked around to see where Hal went and suddenly she realised with horror that Hal's armour weighed a tonne and he must've sunk to the bottom of the river floor.

Quickly taking a breath and diving down to see where the Spartan was, she saw with surprise that the lieutenant was walking across the river bed slowly but steadily towards the shore.

Sparrow then quickly swam to the shore and waited for Hal to emerge, debating whether or not to go in and bring him up.

Her patience was awarded when the Spartan emerged from the water, unharmed, albeit a bit wet.

"I was gonna give you another minute before going in after you" Sparrow said as the Spartan checked his weapons and equipment.

Hal did a systems check on his armour and was relieved that the water hadn't leaked into his MJOLNIR anywhere and then checked his weapons and supplies; thankfully they were only damp and easily dryable.

"I wouldn't have jumped in the water, if I knew I wouldn't make it out" Hal replied.

Making their way up the embankment the three noticed a very nervous looking man standing at the entrance of a cave.

The man noticed them, ran up to and said in a desperate voice

"Please, you've got to help me! My son Joey's in there!" the man babbled as he pointed to the cave.

"Slow down sir, what happened?" Hal asked.

The man took a calming breath and spoke more coherently "My son Joey, he ran off into the caves when I wasn't looking, please you've got to help me save him!" the man begged.

"Alright, calm down, we'll help, lead the way" Sparrow said, the man nodded and started to lead the way into the cave with Sparrow, Hal and Sunny following.

_Inside the Hobbe cave…_

_Strange, this cave looks as though it's currently being inhabited _Hal thought as he looked around the dim interior of the cave as he followed the desperate man.

"Umm… there's one thing I forgot to mention" the desperate man said as the group made their way through the cave, Sparrow cocked an eyebrow questioningly as she looked at the man.

"The cave might be inhabited by one or two hobbes" the man said nervously, Sparrow uttered an exasperated groan.

Hal then asked "What's a hobbe?" he asked.

Sparrow answered the question "Hobbes are ugly little creatures that were supposedly once children twisted into the creatures they are by whispering shadows, I've never seen one myself but I've heard rumours about them" she said as they made their way in further.

"What rumours?" Hal asked.

"That they kidnap children to turn into more hobbes" Sparrow replied, the desperate father of Joey gave a sob.

Soon the group entered an area where there were blood stains and half chewed carcasses on the ground or hanging from the ceiling, the desperate father saw the carcasses and promptly vomited the contents of his stomach on the ground.

After he stopped, he apologised and signalled that he was ready; walking down a corridor, Hal began to hear unintelligible gibbering and snarls, Hal drew his katana and readied it, giving it an experimental twirl.

Soon the group was in a large better lit room where a group of ugly squat creatures stood in a circle gibbering, wearing clothing that would suit children more than them and holding crudely made weapons, these were hobbes.

The desperate man's foot stepped on a stray stone which crunched on the ground, one of the hobbes turned around to see where the noise came from, noticed the group and gibbered loudly to its fellows.

The other hobbes turned around and gibbered and snarled and waved their weapons before moving forward.

Sparrow drew her sword and skewered a hobbe in the eye, killing it, Hal made a figure eight motion with his sword keeping the other hobbes at bay.

Keeping the hobbes at bay, Hal then rushed them and started putting his katana to the test, the blade was good Samarkand steel, far superior to Albion steel.

Sparrow rushed into the fray as well, weaving a deadly dance around the hobbes with Sunny leaping onto the hobbes, tearing out their throats or biting their limbs.

Using a spin kick against a particularly fat looking hobbe, Hal then sliced off the creature's head in one fluid stroke with his katana, then slammed the hilt of his weapon into the skull of a hobbe creeping up on him.

Sparrow's blade streaked through the air, the blade shearing bone and flesh, then Sparrow let fly with a blast of inferno, creating a ring of flame, burning a couple of hobbes.

It wasn't long before the fracas was over and the last hobbe breathed its last breath before expiring.

"Let's keep going, I don't wanna stay in this cave any longer than I have to" Sparrow stated, suddenly some barely intelligible words and sounds echoed from a nearby passage, the desperate father shouted "That's him! That's my son Joey!" and ran off down the corridor before either Hal or Sparrow could stop him.

"C'mon! Let's try and catch up with him before he runs into more of those things" Hal barked and ran off down the corridor where Joey's voice came from.

Sparrow and Sunny struggled to keep up with the Spartan as he ran down the corridor into another large room filled with barrels and mining equipment.

Hal, Sparrow and Sunny were in the middle of the room when the barrels burst open, revealing the cleverly hidden hobbes, the hobbes gibbered an unintelligible war-cry and tried to rush the three.

Hal decided to test his will gauntlets, thinking of the flames that Sparrow was able to cast, Hal brought some flames to his hands and flung balls of flame at the ugly creatures; the flames licked hungrily at the crude clothing and dirty flesh of the creatures, they gibbered their pain and surprise and tried to beat the flames out.

Sparrow then tried her hand at using magic, only this time she thought of lightning and conjured crackling sparks of lightning to her hand and fired off bolts of energy at the hobbes; you could literally see the skeletons of the hobbes as though an x-ray was showing their bones as they were hit by bolts of lightning.

"You learned a new spell, not bad" Hal remarked "How did ya learn it?" he then asked.

"I just thought of lightning and thunder storms" Sparrow replied with a small smile on her face.

"Interesting" Hal stated as the last hobbe was fried by Sparrow's lightning spell.

"C'mon let's keep moving, who knows where that man got to" Sparrow said referring to the desperate father of Joey.

Walking down the corridor that exited out of the chamber, the threesome soon found Joey's father trying to open a door.

The father noticed them and said to them "Joey's behind this door, I know it! See if you can find another way around while I try and open this door" he said as he struggled with the door, Hal gave a sigh, pushed the father aside, looked at the door searching for a weak spot and then slammed his fist hard into the dense wood.

A sharp crack and splinters of wood flew off from the force of Hal's blow, Hal then set to work punching the wooden door open.

As soon as the door was broken apart, a hobbe wearing clothing leapt out, onto the father of Joey sticking a rusty knife in the defenceless man's chest into his heart.

Hal quickly responded by bringing out his energy sword activating it and in one swift motion, sliced off the hobbe's head.

Sparrow quickly tried to tend to the father, but to no avail, he was dying from the wound to his chest.

The poor man let out a choking sob as he clutched his mortally wounded chest and gurgled "That was my son Joey, I always told that those stories about hobbes weren't true but it was true" the dying man sobbed before succumbing to his fatal wound and slumped to the ground dead.

Sparrow gently passed her hand over the poor man's eyes, closing them and observed a minute's silence for poor father of Joey whose son had been turned into a hobbe.

"Are you alright?" Hal asked as Sparrow stood up and squared her shoulders and gave a sigh.

"Yeah, I'm fine, let's keep going" she replied and set off down the tunnel.

After walking down the tunnel, the trio came to an open area with a narrow pathway leading through a chasm with fog hiding its depths and along the pathway, hobbes of varying sizes and skin tones stood on the path, blocking the way.

"Well isn't this quite the party?" Hal remarked as he brought out his energy sword and activating it, Sparrow gave a grim smile and Sunny gnashed his teeth.

The hobbes noticed them and en masse tried to overwhelm the trio, sadly for the hobbes they wouldn't be eating tonight as they bit off more than they could chew when it came to facing a Spartan super soldier and a Hero and her faithful dog.

The plasma blade of Hal's energy sword effortlessly sliced through bone and flesh, cutting and cooking at the same time, Sparrow's steel sword skewered any hobbe stupid enough to get in her way and Sunny's teeth were the last thing any hobbe saw if they didn't face Hal or Sparrow.

Cutting their way through, Hal took a look at the reading of his energy sword; so far he was down to 38% power, conserving power, Hal brought out his knives and started to weave them in undulating patterns, carving flesh from the bones of the hobbes.

Soon all the hobbes were or slowly dying of their wounds, Hal then said to Sparrow who was putting a groaning hobbe out its misery "C'mon let's get out of this cave, it stinks" he said and started to walk up the stone pathway.

The trio soon came to the final chamber where a ladder leading up to the surface stood.

Hal gentlemanly allowed Sparrow to go first, who carried Sunny with her in one arm, Hal got a view of Sparrow's shapely behind as she climbed up the ladder, watching it sway with each movement of her legs, more strange thoughts and images popped into Hal's mind, Hal realised what he was doing was very rude staring at Sparrow's behind, even if it was slightly hypnotic watching it sway so deliciously, a thought of what Sparrow would look like naked appeared into Hal's mind and he violently shook his head to rid himself of the thought, he couldn't afford distractions while on a mission, even if it was a very tempting distraction to indulge in.

Shaking his head to rid the thought, Hal then climbed the ladder to where Sparrow was waiting.

_On the surface…_

Sparrow had climbed out of the hobbe cave to see she was standing in what remained of an old carriage and stable house and not far from the dilapidated building were the three bandits from earlier.

Hal soon appeared at the top of the ladder and asked her "What's going on?" he asked as he pulled himself up to the ground.

"Remember those bandits from earlier who were taunting us?" Sparrow asked as she watched the bandits look at the other side of the ruined bridge.

Hal nodded and then noticed the three bandits with their backs turned to them.

"Whaddya think?" Hal asked as he brought out his DMR and checked if it had some ammo in it.

"I think I'd like to pay them a little visit" Sparrow said conversationally as she brought out her rifle and cocked back the firing hammer.

The three bandits in question were talking to each other as they watched for any travellers passing through.

"I'm cold, can we go back now?" one bandit complained.

The bandit with the headdress shook his head at him and said "No, the boss said we were to keep watch for any travellers comin' 'ere and to stop them from getting across, so shut it!" he said, the other bandit muttered something about wanting a nice cold tankard of ale and a warm bed.

The third bandit turned around to check if anything was amiss and saw three familiar figures and was about to shout a warning to his comrades when a sharp crack rang out and a bullet went right through the man's head, killing him instantly.

The other two heard the sound and turned around to see where the sound came from, only to receive a bullet to the head each and fell to the ground dead.

Sparrow gave a smile of satisfaction and said to Hal "Well that takes care of that, let's go, Oakfield awaits us" she said with a smile and started to walk up the hill to where the road leading to Oakfield was, Hal and Sunny fell into step with her and walked up the hill to the Oakfield road.

_To be continued…_

A/N: phew, that's another chapter done and dusted for this story, it took me a while to think of something to write for this chapter, so I've been playing the game and watching walkthroughs of Fable II a lot so I could get an idea of what to write for this chapter and I put in the moment where Six is a little 'distracted' by Sparrow's buttocks, purely for a little taste of their relationship to come.

But some of you will argue about that when it comes to the ghost who wants revenge on his old lover quest, I can tell you now, I'm not putting Sparrow and Alex together, so I may not be going to enact that quest where Alex comes in.

Anyways in the next chapter, we'll see Six and Sparrow enter Oakfield, talk with the abbot and have to earn a bit of renown by helping Barnum fix the bridge by killing the bandit leader Dash and then maybe find some way for Six and Sparrow to earn some renown.

We'll also see a little more intimate interaction between Six and Sparrow, nothing too fast or racy but maybe the inn at Oakfield only has one room to spare and Six and Sparrow have to bunk together and see each other in their underwear and since Sparrow has Candice Swanepoel's heavenly body and face, it'll certainly put some interesting thoughts in Six's mind.

Anyways, I gotta get to writing out the next chapter for this story and I'm out of time for the day, so toodleloo and stay gold people… oh and one other thing… REVIEW!


	4. Chapter 4

Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die Chapter 4

A/N: hallo everyone it's Angry lil' elf again with another chapter of my newest Halo crossover story, picking up where we left off, we'll see Six, Sparrow and Sunny the dog travel to Oakfield, meet with the abbot of the Temple of Light and have to earn some renown, one such way they'll earn renown is by helping Barnum with his bandit problem and maybe they'll model for the sculptor in Oakfield.

Regarding the Six/Sparrow relationship I'll kick it up a little by writing out a scene between them where the Oakfield inn only has one room to spare and the two have to bunk together and they'll see each other in their underthings and with Sparrow having the heavenly body and angelic face of Candice Swanepoel it'll certainly put some interesting thoughts in Six's head and rest assured when Sparrow sees Six's bare body, it'll certainly get her heart racing a bit ;-)

Now we begin;

Hal, Sparrow and Sunny the dog walked down the dusk hued road and soon they entered what Hal thought must've been the most lush area he had seen in his life; dark moist soil covered fenced off paddocks, vegetable produce grew large and proudly in cultivated rows, the largest produce Hal had ever seen.

The grass and flowers were all bright and healthy looking and dark brown trees topped with dark green leaves grew tall and proud.

Walking down the dusty brown path, Sparrow, Sunny and Hal soon came to some well-built houses; a sheriff standing guard at a carriage house saw them walking down the path and said in surprise "Travellers? Got past the bandits alright then? Well, let me lay down some ground rules; Oakfield's a nice quiet peaceable town and you're not to go around causing trouble or you'll have me to deal with" the sheriff threatened and walked off to attend other duties.

Theresa's voice made itself known in Sparrow's ear "_Oakfield is one of the lushest regions in Albion; it owes its fertility to a tree known as the Golden Oak, the Oak lasts a hundred years and gives a single golden acorn, the Temple of Light monks then undergo a sacred ritual to plant the acorn and ensure fertility reigns in Oakfield, but something troubles the head abbot at the temple, go and see him"_ Theresa's smooth voice said.

Making a few enquiries, Sparrow was soon directed to the location of the Temple.

With Hal and Sunny following, they made their way down the path, passing some ruins along the way.

Soon they were coming up to the grounds of the Temple of Light.

Walking up the simple stone pathway, the trio soon heard voices arguing.

"But Father, the ritual states that only two monks may enter the Wellspring, no one else" one voice said.

Another voice argued "I won't be sending in my only daughter into unknown danger" the voice said.

Sparrow, Hal and Sunny soon came up to a white marble building and entering it they found a group of hooded monks and an old man wearing monk robes talking.

The older monk then said to the other monks "Brothers, leave us" he said, the other monks bowed and took their leave.

The old man, presumably the abbot of the Temple of Light then looked at Sparrow and Hal and said "Let me take a look at you both" he said and his wrinkled face took on a scrutinising look and he muttered something under his breath.

"Yes, yes, you both look strong and capable enough and I do wonder" he said.

"We heard that you are looking for some protectors for one of your monks" Hal said, the abbot looked at Hal and replied

"Yes, you heard correctly, I am looking for some protectors for one of my monks for our annual ritual" the abbot said

"But I'm afraid I can't entrust two complete strangers with the safety of one my monks, if you could find some way to make yourselves better known I may change my mind" the abbot said.

"Understood, any hints on how we might do that?" Hal asked.

"I believe a businessman is having trouble with bandits in Rookridge, you probably passed them on your way here, I hear he's in the Sandgoose Inn" the abbot replied.

Sparrow nodded and she, Sunny and Hal left the Temple of Light.

Walking down back to the village, the trio soon found the Sandgoose Inn; it was large homey looking pub, a place where you could just pull up a chair, a drink and talk about life in general.

But Sparrow and Hal weren't there to drink or pull up a chair, they were there to find information on the businessman.

As they entered the pub, Sparrow heard a somewhat familiar voice moaning about bandits and their utter wickedness.

"Oh come on, Barnum, you can think of something, maybe a flying machine to fly right over those bandits' heads, but where would I get the money?" the voice moaned, Sparrow looked around the pub to see where it was coming from; it was coming from the upper balcony and a man standing there with his head in his hand, bemoaning his luck.

Sparrow pointed out the man to Hal and leads the way up the stairs and as soon as they were behind the man, Sparrow politely coughed to get the man's attention.

The man turned around and did a double take and exclaimed "Well bless my soul it's you!" the man said, Sparrow quirked an eyebrow questioningly.

The man then exclaimed "It's me! Barnum! From Old Town remember?" he asked, Sparrow's memory then clicked and she replied "It is you Barnum I recognised your voice as soon as I heard it but I couldn't remember what you looked like, how did your picture taking business go?" Sparrow asked kindly.

Barnum's face fell slightly and he replied "Well my picture taking business didn't take off quite as well I expected" he said.

Sparrow apologised but Barnum replied "Oh no it wasn't your fault, I've moved on from that, lots of successful business ventures since then" he said.

"But look at you! All grown up and a proper adventurer too, that sister of yours would be so proud" Barnum said proudly.

"But I've had a bit of a problem lately, I made the deal of the century the other day, I bought the Rookridge bridge, cost me every bit of gold I had but a thing like that pays for itself, what with the trade tolls and all" Barnum said.

"Only now bandits have gone and blown it up and no-one can get near it to repair it" Barnum added sadly.

"Do you want us to get rid of the bandits for you?" Sparrow asked gently, Barnum's face took on a look of surprise and he asked

"You'd do that for me?" he asked.

"Of course, you helped me and my sister by giving us that gold coin, so it's only fair that I repay you" Sparrow replied "Won't we Lieutenant?" she asked Hal who was standing behind her, Hal nodded once.

Barnum's face took on a look of pure relief and he thanked them both profusely.

Sparrow took a look outside and said "It's getting dark, we'll take care of the bandits tomorrow morning" she said, Hal nodded and agreed.

Going up to the bar, Sparrow got the attention of the barman.

"Excuse me sir" Sparrow said, the grizzled but bright eyed Barman took one moment to serve a drink and asked "Yes miss, what can I do for you?" he asked politely.

"Me and my friend here would like separate rooms for the night" Sparrow said, the barman's face took on a look of disappointment and he said "Well unfortunately miss, we only have one room left" he said apologetically.

Sparrow's face took on a look of surprise and she asked "Are you sure you don't have any other rooms available?" she asked, the barman nodded and replied that one room was all they had left but offered to cut down the price for them.

Sparrow took the offer graciously, paid for the room and said to Hal "Well looks like we'll be bunking together for the night, they only have one room left, so…" Sparrow said shrugging her shoulders, Hal's voice sounded as though he wasn't perturbed by the thought of bunking with Sparrow as he said "It'll be fine, it's only for the night" he said casually.

Given the key to the room, Sparrow, Hal and Sunny left for the rooms upstairs.

Opening the room and finding only one bed, a chair and a wardrobe, it was pretty bare bones basic.

"Well, we may as well get some sleep; we'll have to be up early to take care of the bandits tomorrow" Hal said, Sparrow nodded and began to unbutton her jacket, Hal politely turned his back and started to unclip the armour segments of his MJOLNIR armour and place them in a neat pile on the floor.

Next came the titanium weave body suit, Hal unzipped it and folded it carefully and put it near his armour segments, Hal looked over his shoulder slightly and his eyes widened a bit; what he saw was Sparrow's body clad in only a simple bra and panties, her body was very well formed, slim but curvy in all the right places, toned as well showing she did regular exercise or it could be that Sparrow got enough exercise from fighting bandits.

There were barely any scars or wound marks on Sparrow's flawless body, a little dirt and grime here and there but otherwise Sparrow's body was perfect, Hal swore he could see tinges of blonde at the roots of Sparrow's dark hair, Sparrow's head turned slightly, Hal turned his head away from Sparrow's gaze.

Sparrow had finished undressing herself and turned her head slightly in Hal's direction to see if he had finished undressing himself and she gaped a little at the sight of Hal's body; it was lean yet very well-muscled, he was wearing plain white boxers to cover his modesty and scars riddled themselves on Hal's body, some crisscrossed each other and small knotted scars showed bullets had entered themselves and shiny scars from burns showed themselves, but the scars didn't detract from Hal's appearance but made him look more rugged looking and rugged was a very good thing in Sparrow's book.

Sparrow braced herself and then turned her body around at the same time as Hal turned his body around and got a good look at Hal's front, again she gaped a bit and Hal's eyes widened a bit as he saw Sparrow's front.

Strange yet familiar thoughts appeared in Hal's mind as he got a good look at Sparrow's front; she had a flat stomach and her breasts were well formed, a good sized C-cup breasts, curvy hips, slim waist, toned arms, elegant but strong hands, long almost endless legs with perfect feet and toes and her face captivated Hal as he looked at her; cerulean doe-like blue eyes, high cheek bones, full lips that were open slightly enticing Hal to kiss them and see what they tasted like as he looked at them.

Sparrow got a good look at Hal's front and needless to say she liked what she saw; toned muscular arms, defined abs and pectorals, powerful calloused hands, powerful legs and a tattoo of crossed swords and helmet in the design of Hal's own helmet showed itself over the place where Hal's heart was.

"Umm… should we go to bed now?" Hal's voice shook Sparrow out of her inspection of her companion and she almost stammered out her answer

"Uh… y-yes, yes we should get some sleep, the bed should be big enough for us both" she said as she moved towards the bed, trying not to feel self-conscious about her body, Sparrow had never felt self-conscious about her body before.

Growing up in the gypsy camp where she bathed alongside other people had removed some of her inhibitions but not all of them so she would be classed as 'loose' or 'promiscuous' just enough so she would feel comfortable in her own skin but in the Spartan's presence, she felt strangely self-conscious about her body and whether the Spartan liked it or not, so far Hal wasn't showing any signs of appreciation or scorn but his eyes had widened a bit, whether that was a good or bad thing, Sparrow didn't know but she silently hoped it was a good thing.

Hal wasn't too sure about the strange yet familiar thoughts in his head and how he was admiring Sparrow's womanly body but acknowledged that what he was doing was very rude staring at her and it was probably making her uncomfortable with him staring at her but some part of him called him to continue looking at her admirable form.

Sparrow then parted the covers of the bed and got inside it and scooted over to one side of the bed and said to him "The bed's big enough, just stay on your side of the bed Lieutenant" Sparrow warned, Hal quirked an eyebrow at that threat, granted that Sparrow had shown that she was capable of handling herself in combat but if she were to go up against a fully trained super-soldier of the UNSC, she wouldn't stand a chance.

Hal then walked over to the bed, taking note of how Sparrow blushed a bit as he came closer and slid in the bed next to her.

Sunny the dog jumped onto the bed, walked a small circle on the bed then settled down and fell asleep, Sparrow smiled at how her faithful dog could fall asleep so easily and without trouble.

"Well good night Sparrow" Hal said a little awkwardly and turned on his side facing away from Sparrow.

"Good night Lieutenant" Sparrow murmured as she settled down to sleep.

_The next morning…_

Hal woke up blearily and found that somehow he had turned himself on his back and Sparrow, bless her heart, was on top of him, laying her head on his chest, snoring quietly.

Hal didn't know what possessed him to do it but he started running his hands gently through Sparrow's dark hair; it felt like silk in his hands and it smelled of flowers, the blonde roots shone slightly as Hal ran his hands through Sparrow's hair.

Sparrow murmured to herself and woke up blearily, Hal quickly stopped running his hands through her hair as she slowly woke up.

"I thought I told you to stay on your side of the bed" Sparrow murmured blearily as she looked at Hal's face.

"I am on my side of the bed, it's you who isn't" Hal said.

Sparrow took a look at the bed and noticed that she indeed was not on her side of the bed and she was lying on top of Hal, she blushed furiously and she hurriedly muttered an apology.

"Sorry" she quickly said as she rolled onto her side of the bed and looked at Hal, her cheeks a rosy red colour, a thought of how Sparrow looked so attractive blushing like that appeared in Hal's head.

"It's fine, just try not to do it again" Hal muttered as he mentally shook the thought of Sparrow blushing out of his head.

He didn't want to say, but Hal had a dream of Sparrow last night while he was asleep, it was of him and her, both of them in their underwear and… kissing, the thought of kissing Sparrow was both frightening and enticing for Hal when he thought about it.

Hal shook his head mentally at the thought of kissing Sparrow being frightening, Spartans were meant to be afraid, they were meant to be fearless super-soldiers of the UNSC, trained to be the most lethal tool against the Insurrectionists and the Covenant.

"Is something wrong Lieutenant?" Sparrow asked as she noticed Hal deep in thought a slight frown on his face.

Hal looked up at Sparrow, noting the look of concern on her face and said "Yes everything's fine" he said awkwardly and got up out of bed and began to put his MJOLNIR armour on.

Sparrow quirked an eyebrow at Hal's reply but decided to look into it later and got dressed and fed Sunny by giving him some beef jerky to chew on; Sunny happily munched it down while his mistress got dressed.

Hal was soon dressed in his armour and took an apple and some water to eat from the food pack and quickly ate, letting the nourishing food sustain him.

Hal did a systems check on his armour and found everything in working order and slipped his will gauntlets on over his armoured hands, feeling the familiar rush of energy flow into him.

Soon Sparrow was dressed in her gear and took an apple and a carrot and some fruit juice for her breakfast.

Stepping out into the early sunshine of Oakfield, it was an appreciative sight to see Oakfield in the morning as the dawn began to creep up over the mountains.

"C'mon, those bandits aren't gonna wait around all day" Hal said and started to head off in the direction of Rookridge where the bandits were supposed to be, Sparrow and Sunny followed closely.

_Later, in Rookridge…_

Hal, Sparrow and Sunny stepped out into the drizzling mist of Rookridge, compared to Oakfield, Rookridge seemed dreary and sad to be in and look at.

Walking down the hill to where the old carriage house was, Hal caught sight of two rough looking thugs keeping watch from a nearby path leading upwards into the mountains.

"Someone's comin' better tell the boss" one of the bandits said and the two bandits then left heading up the pathway, Sparrow could make out the remains of a what could have been a once prosperous inn/tavern.

"They went up the path, you think that's where the bandits have set up camp?" Sparrow asked looking at Hal.

Hal nodded thoughtfully and replied "Could very well be, c'mon let's go have a chat with those assholes" he said and drew his DMR and flicked the safety off.

Sparrow nodded and fondled the stock of her rifle; walking up the winding path, the trio soon came up to the dilapidated inn and opened the door.

Bandits soon jumped out from behind their cover and a particularly tough looking thug wearing goggles over his eyes looked at Hal, Sparrow and Sunny and snapped out an order to his men.

"Get 'em!" he barked out and dashed out of the building leaving his men to do the dirty work.

Hal snapped into action and aimed his DMR at the nearest bandit standing near the foot of the stairs and fired at him, inferior bullets flickering against his energy shields.

Firing off a round at the bandit's head, Hal then rounded on another Bandit firing upon him and Sparrow, Hal aimed for the thug's head and fired off a NATO round.

Sparrow whipped out her clockwork rifle and began shooting at the bandits firing upon her, she managed to score a few hits, giving the bandits pause for thought and some considerable pain.

One bandit managed to score a shot on Sparrow, the flintlock rifle round grazed Sparrow's arm and she growled out her pain and she drew her sword and started running up the stairs to charge the bandits.

Hal drew his katana and followed after Sparrow, ready to kill the bandits firing upon them.

Sparrow stamped on a bandit's foot then sliced the bandit's chest open with her longsword before moving onto the next one, the next bandit drew his sword and possessed some marginal skill and parried a couple of Sparrow's attacks but made a fatal mistake and was rewarded with his throat being cut open killing him.

Hal moved past Sparrow and attacked the other bandits with his katana and made short work of the bandits who really didn't stand a chance against him.

As the last bandit fell, Hal barked "C'mon! Let's go after that one with the goggles, he's the leader! We kill him, the rest will fall" he said and ran out onto the outside balcony with Sparrow and Sunny following.

The backyard of the dilapidated inn lead out into what might've been a mining operation before the bandits took over, a mine cart track winded its way across a waterfall into some wilderness.

Sparrow then saw the bandit leader on the mine cart track who shouted across to them

"You stupid idiots! I was outrunning guards ever since I was in nappies! Why do you think they call me Dash! Stupid! I'm the fastest man in Albion!" Dash shouted and he ran off, barely a blur, Hal's eyebrow rose a bit as he observed Dash's speed.

"C'mon, he can't run forever" Hal said and the trio set off after the bandit leader, going down the stairs into the backyard of the inn and following the path leading to the mine cart track.

Reaching where the foreman's office was, Hal and Co. were surprised by some bandits who were trying to prevent them from reaching their leader; Sparrow flung bolts of lightning at the bandits, observing as their bodies were lit up like Christmas trees, showing the skeletons.

Hal drew his katana and with eye blurring speed, he sliced off one bandit's leg and another's head clean off, Sunny leapt onto the newly one-legged bandit, tearing out his throat, Sparrow then switched to using inferno and flung balls of flame at the bandits and their greasy looking clothes; flames licked hungrily at the flesh and greasy clothing of the bandits and the thugs yelped as they tried to put out the flames, Hal then sliced their heads off to stop them running around trying to put the flames out.

Running along the mine cart track, Hal and Sparrow followed Sunny who had picked up Dash's scent and was running along the track , ears down, all four legs galloping.

Reaching an area where a wooden wall and gate was, obviously leading out to the road to Bowerstone, more bandits appeared blocking the way, Sunny ran past them, the bandits barely had time to look at the dog run past them when Sparrow using a flourish attack sliced into the bandits with her sword with Hal using his assault rifle to spray into the thugs.

The bandits didn't last long against this onslaught and fell like wheat before the scythe, as the last bandit fell to the ground, Sparrow could hear Dash's voice shouting

"Get away ya vicious mutt! Don't make me come down from here!" Dash shouted, Sparrow and Hal followed the sound of Dash's voice and found him in a clearing standing on top of a tall stone cairn with Sunny barking at him baring his sharp teeth and Dash was using a liberal amount of obscene language, threatening to castrate Sunny or skin him alive.

Hal asked "Do you wanna kill Dash? Or should I?" he asked looking at Sparrow.

Sparrow looked thoughtful and replied "Well I killed Thag but then you killed the bandit offering us money so maybe I should take this one" she said and with that said, she pulled out her rifle, aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger.

BANG!

The bullet whizzed through the air and hit Dash in the head, killing him and he fell off the stone cairn and hit the ground stone dead.

Sunny then sniffed Dash's body and pulled something from the dead bandit chief's head and ran over to Sparrow and Hal; it was Dash's goggles, Sparrow took the goggles from Sunny's mouth and remarked "Hmm a souvenir don't you think?" she asked offhandedly Hal replied "Keep it, I'm not into keeping trophies" he said.

"C'mon, let's get back to Oakfield and inform Barnum that the bandits have been dealt with" Hal said and started to walk back down the pathway, heading back the way they came.

"So how many did you kill?" Sparrow asked conversationally as she walked with Hal down the dirt path.

"Not sure, twelve I think" Hal replied as they passed a mine entrance, Hal made a note to look into it later "How many did you kill?" he asked noncommittally.

"Same I think, not counting Dash" Sparrow replied.

"If you did count Dash, then you have beaten me in 'who's the better killer?'" Hal replied almost humorously, Sparrow gave a smile and a small chuckle and replied "Maybe, but I think we're about even" she said as they were soon back on the mine cart track and walking along it.

Soon they reached the dilapidated tavern and Sunny barked and lead Sparrow to a treasure chest where she found a good sized pouch of gold, numbering in at sixty gold crowns, Sparrow happily pocketed it and re-joined Hal outside the tavern.

Hal, Sparrow and Sunny then went on the road to Oakfield as the sun shone brightly upon, reaching its noon height.

_Now in Oakfield…_

Sparrow, Hal and Sunny walked along the dusty path towards the Sandgoose inn where Barnum was waiting.

They soon found Barnum sitting in the upstairs bar, head in his hands, clearly waiting for their return.

Sparrow tossed Dash's goggles on the table in front of Barnum who was shaken out of his reverie.

"Y-you did it? Oh I knew you'd come through for me!" Barnum said joyously and hugged Sparrow happily, tears of happiness in his eyes.

Sparrow hugged him back and said "Well, now that bandits are gone, you'll be able to get your bridge business up and running now?" she asked.

Barnum then released Sparrow and said "Well it turns out that those deeds to the bridge were quite the real thing, but it's not me who has to rebuild the bridge, oh I know, I've struck out again but I'll bounce back, I always do" he said cheerfully.

"Oh and before I forget, I want you to have this" Barnum said and passed Sparrow an old book.

"It's my old thesaurus, I want you to have it as a sort of payment until I can get something better to pay you with" Barnum said, Sparrow then tried to say "But this is yours, I can't take it" she said trying to hand back the book to him.

Barnum shook his head and said "No, I don't need it anymore, I know it off by heart now anyway, you never know when you're in a lexicological quandary" he said as he handed back the thesaurus to Sparrow, Sparrow reluctantly took it and stored it in her backpack.

Theresa's voice then made itself known in Sparrow's mind _"You're almost famous enough, a few people are whispering of your deeds, but it's not quite enough"_ Theresa's voice said.

"Well Lieutenant we only need a little bit more renown and we're set to go to the Temple of Light" Sparrow said "Any ideas?" she asked.

Hal noticed a poster on the wall and took a look at it, it said; _wanted: someone willing to stand and model for statue to be erected in Oakfield, will bring fame to willing participant/s. See Madeline the Sculptor for details._

"How about this?" Hal said pointing to the sign, Sparrow took a look at it, looked thoughtful and said "Don't see why this wouldn't work, let's give it a try" she said.

It was now one o'clock in the afternoon as Sparrow, Hal and Sunny left the Sandgoose and left in the direction of some houses after making an inquiry on where to find the Sculptor.

Reaching the house where there was a medium sized barn where a blonde haired woman, presumably the Sculptor, was looking at a large stone block sourly as though it had done her a great wrong.

Hal coughed politely to get the woman's attention, the woman then turned to look at Hal, Sparrow and Sunny and snapped "Yes whaddya want?" she snapped.

"We were here to inquire about you looking for models for your statue" Sparrow said politely, the woman arched an eyebrow and looked at the scrutinisingly and muttered "I wonder… yes, yes and remarkable physiognomy I shall immortalise you both at once" she shouted.

"You'll take us on then?" Sparrow asked.

"Yes, yes, now stand there, so I can get a good shot of you both" the Sculptor ordered, Sparrow and Hal then moved towards the spot the woman indicated and the woman then barked out another order.

"Now give me your best pose, make sure it's a good one and hold it for as long as you can, so I can get it right" she barked.

Sparrow then held her arms up as though she was flexing her muscles, Hal took out his katana and held it in a samurai fighting stance, sword held high above his head.

Then the sculptor began to chisel away at the stone block, giving out instructions or telling them not to move so much.

"That's it, a little longer, not too long and perfect" the Sculptor said as she chiselled the last bit.

"You two have reached into the flames of the ephemeral and pulled out the flame of eternity" the Sculptor said "I'll get to work on the sculpture right away, it'll be up tomorrow morning when you next see it" she added and with that, she shooed them out of the barn and as Hal and Sparrow walked out of the barn, they could hear the sound of stone being chipped and chiselled away by the Sculptor.

Theresa's voice made itself known in Sparrow's mind again _"You've done it! Now everyone has heard of you, the abbot will have to accept you and the Lieutenant as the escorts, now go and see the abbot at the Temple"_ Theresa's voice said.

Sparrow said to Hal "Theresa said we've earned enough renown to be accepted as the escorts, so let's go" she said and set off in the direction of the Temple of Light with Hal and Sunny the dog following close behind her.

_To be continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die Chapter 5

The story so far; So far Six, Sunny the dog and Sparrow have earned some renown by eliminating the bandit leader Dash and modelling for a sculpture to be erected in Oakfield. And they are now on their way to recruiting the Hero of Strength, Sister Hannah or Hammer when people think they're being clever and in Hammer's words 'They're not', of course we'll see Six and Sparrow see the first agent of Lucien who will assassinate Hammer's father and after the burial and the ritual, Hammer will be inducted into conspiracy against Lucien and from there we'll see Sparrow, Sunny and Six do a couple of little jobs around Oakfield such as chopping wood to earn a bit of cash and leave Oakfield for Bowerstone.

A/N; c'mon guys help me out here, this story's only gotten sixteen or so reviews, a lot of follows and faves but nearly all of you aren't leaving reviews, to those of you who are leaving reviews I thank you all profusely and encourage you to leave more each chapter I post but to the rest of you, please leave a review, I live off them and sadly you're all starving me and I'm wasting away and sadly I'm inclined to quit altogether because of the lack of reviews, granted I'm not the best of writers but please leave me some constructive criticism in your reviews so I can improve my writing.  
Okay rant out of the way, in this chapter we'll see the introduction of Hammer and the quest to recruit her to Sparrow's quest for vengeance and we'll see Six and Sparrow then do some jobs around Oakfield such as chopping wood and then leave for Bowerstone and reunite with Hammer at the Guild Cave with Theresa.

An interesting thought came to my head about Six's weapons, what if he were to upgrade them with some augment stones such as flame, devastation etc. and another thought came to me what if during the quest to Westcliff traversing through the Howling Halls, Six finds a legendary weapon of his own to use and this weapon could talk, I plan on making it a longsword/hand-and-a-half sword.

I was inspired for this weapon by a favourite gamebook series of mine called fighting fantasy where you play the hero, there was one particular set of books called the adventures of Goldhawk where you had a magical talking sword called Edge that was really sarcastic and snarky and disliked being used for mundane tasks other than fighting. I plan on calling Six's talking sword Vorpal Edge similar to the fighting fantasy sword, purely because I have no imagination whatsoever and it'll be funny to see the interaction between Six, Sparrow, Hammer and the sword's sarcastic somewhat whiney personality, anyway just an idea of mine that I'd like to put into effect.

Also because I'm a bastard, I've decided to change Sparrow's appearance back to Doutzen Kroes's physical appearance and Netherlands accent as I've decided I'm firmly in love with Doutzen Kroes and nothing against Candice Swanepoel as I'm in love with her as well but I love Doutzen more.

Now we begin;

As Sparrow, Sunny and Hal walked up the path leading to the Temple, they had a quiet word about how they were going to convince the Pilgrim/Hero of Strength to join their cause.

"What should we do to convince the Pilgrim to join our cause?" Sparrow asked.

"We should just be honest with the Pilgrim, try and play on his or her sense of justice and goodness to make them join us." Hal said as they walked up the path, past the waterfall leading to the temple.

As they reached the temple, they found the abbot inside the temple praying, Sparrow coughed to get the old monk's attention.

"Ah, you're back again, I've heard quite a lot about you both and how you helped this town" The abbot said.

"I've now decided to hire you both to be the escort for this endeavour" the abbot added.

"Come, walk with me a while" the abbot said and walked outside the temple with Sparrow, Hal and Sunny following.

"Every hundred years, the Golden Oak dies giving a single golden acorn, which we monks then plant in the ground and water with holy water taken from the Wellspring Cave which is said to be quite dangerous" the abbot explained.

"The ritual which the Temple of Light undertakes says that two monks must enter the cave; the strongest and that of the abbot's choosing" the abbot said "Obviously this concerns me as the strongest is my only daughter and that is why I am sending you two in as protectors for her" he added.

"Understood, where might we find your daughter sir?" Hal asked.

"Down by the path that leads here, near the Wellspring Cave, you probably passed it on your way here" the abbot said as he pointed down the path and Sparrow could just make out some old ruins.

Sparrow then said to the abbot "Don't worry, father, we'll make sure that your daughter is safe" she said, the abbot thanked them and dismissed them both and left for his monk duties.

Sparrow, Hal and Sunny then made their way down the ruins that were pointed out to them by the abbot.

"Do you think that the abbot's daughter might be the Hero of Strength Lieutenant?" Sparrow asked as they walked down the dirt path.

"Well the abbot did say that the ritual needs the strongest monk, so this female monk may just be the Hero of Strength we need to recruit" Hal replied.

Soon the trio heard some singing.

"Down by the reeds, down by the reeds" the voice sang.

Sparrow soon saw the singer; she was immensely tall, with bulging muscles on her arms and legs and fiery red hair drawn in a dreadlocked ponytail, her face was attractive enough, a little rough-hewn but still well formed and pleasant to look at, she was also wearing monk clothing and holding a bottle of beer in one hand as she lounged on a stone wall.

The woman then noticed them, smiled and said "Ah, knew my lovely singing voice would bring the crowds" she said cheerfully and finished off her beer and threw it over her shoulder carelessly and dropped down from the wall.

"Hello there" she said brightly "You two must be my escorts, father said you'd be coming by" she added.

"My name's Sister Hannah, most people call me 'Hammer' when they think they're being clever" Hannah said.

"They're not" she added with finality in her tone, Hal smiled a little, this woman reminded him a bit of Jorge, a likeable sociable person but could be very dangerous when angry.

Sunny then walked up to Hannah and barked at her friendly, Hannah's face lit up as she noticed Sunny.

"Hey there boy!" Hannah exclaimed cheerfully as she knelt down on one knee and let Sunny start licking her voice, cuddling and petting him.

"Are you going to be my protector? Oh I feel much safer with you around, yes I will" Hannah said cheerfully as she petted Sunny, letting him lick her face eagerly.

"Well, now that we're here, we might as well get this over with, whatever fighting's to be done, it's all yours as we monks make a solemn vow never to bash anyone's face in" Hannah said as she stood up and hefted a large earthenware jug covered in runes.

Sparrow could hear Theresa's voice inside her head as Hannah said that sentence _"This won't do at all, we require a Hero, not a pacifist monk. We will have to find her a reason to fight"_ Theresa said.

"You two are lucky, you get to walk around easily while I have to lug this heavy thing around, golden or not, how much water does an acorn need?" Hannah asked out loud as Sparrow, Hal, Sunny and her started to walk down the steps leading into the Wellspring.

_The Wellspring Cave…_

It was a bit dark inside the Wellspring but there were some torches on the rough stone walls.

"It's a bit dark in here isn't it?" Hannah said as the group went down the incline of the stone passage.

"To think that no-one has been in this cave for a hundred years" Hannah said "Well, no monks anyway, I suppose a few adventurers have been in here but if any have made it out, I haven't heard of it" she added.

Soon the group entered a large room where there were three portcullises leading to different rooms.

"Right, this must be the central chamber, each door has a pressure plate and we need more and more weight as we go" Hannah said, "This door here is the first one" she said, leading them over to the portcullis on the left.

Hannah stepped on the pressure plate and the portcullis gate opened, Hal went first to scout ahead with Sparrow, Sunny and Hannah following behind.

Walking down the corridor, soon the group came into a large spacious cavern with a winding stone path elevated above a chasm with mist and fog obscuring the depths below; but oddly there were little floating balls of light suspended above, floating lazily around the stalactites.

"Oh they're lovely!" Hannah exclaimed as she looked at them "I think they're called wisps, souls of the dead who never left this world, a bit sad isn't?" Hannah said as she looked at the wisps in fascination.

Hal narrowed his eyes in his helmet, he couldn't help but feel that these wisps could become very dangerous if they were disturbed.

Shaking his head, Hal then walked down the winding stone path leading the group.

"Careful there boy, watch your step" Hannah said to Sunny "What do you think's at the bottom? Probably all the poor buggers who've taken a wrong step" she said.

Reaching the end of the path, the group then entered a room with a platform with stairs and what looked like a statue of a robed woman holding a bowl and two plates of metal in a row in front of it.

"Right this is the first chamber where we get the water from, I stand under the statue so I can catch while one of you stands on the other plate to make the water flow" Hannah instructed as she then walked over to the statue and stood the urn underneath the stone bowl.

Sparrow then walked over to the other metal plate and after getting the okay from Hannah, she stepped on to the plate and water then started to pour from the ceiling onto the statue's stone bowl and water began to flow into the urn Hannah was carrying.

"Great I can feel this thing getting even heavier, that's nice that is" Hannah muttered as the water poured from the bowl into the urn.

"We have to keep filling the urn until the water stops and then we move onto the next chamber" Hannah said as the water flowed from the bowl; soon the water slowed to a trickle and then stopped.

"Right onto the next chamber then" Hannah said as she hefted the clay urn and looped her arm through the handle.

Suddenly a rattling guttural moan sounded out from the exit.

Hannah looked around wildly and exclaimed "What in the world was that?!" she exclaimed "Whatever made that noise doesn't sound too friendly" she said nervously, Hal took out his assault rifle and flicked off the safety, Sparrow drew her steel longsword and held it tightly in her hands.

Hal lead the group out onto the chasm and looked around; so far, so good, nothing was coming out to attack.

Oh wait, there is something coming to attack them; one of the wisps then flew down the stone bridge and dived into the ground, a couple seconds of silence and bursting out from the ground was the dried desiccated corpse of someone that may have come from the Oakfield village, still wearing his clothes although they were tattered and ragged and holding in two rotted hands, farming implements, an unnatural white light emanated from the walking corpse's eye sockets.

The walking corpse awkwardly turned its head towards the group and a low rattling groan tumbled from its mouth as it looked at them and started shuffling towards them.

"Umm… you can handle this right?" Hannah asked nervously as she watched the corpse shuffle towards them.

Hal aimed his assault rifle at the walking corpse and fired off three rounds; the bullets tore through the air and hit the walking corpse, breaking rotted flesh and brittle bone with such force the entire body of the zombie broke apart and purplish mist, making the vague shape of a skull rose up out of the body and dissipated.

Suddenly the wisps that were floating among the stalactites flew down to the pathway and dove into the ground, causing more corpses of villagers burst out of the ground and they began to shuffle towards the group.

Sparrow took out her rifle and began firing upon the zombies and Hal did much the same with his assault rifle, the zombies didn't last long against the combined firepower of Sparrow and Hal.

Soon the wisps stopped coming and silence rained again.

"That was brilliant! Those things didn't stand a chance!" Hannah exclaimed, Hal said "Let's keep moving, I don't wanna stay out on this bridge any longer than I have to" he said, Sparrow nodded and Hannah agreed and they began to walk up the bridge to the main chamber.

"That was brilliant what you two did back there, I don't think two pacifist monks could have done anything against those things" Hannah said.

As they trudged up the stone bridge Hannah soon got to talking "I've heard stories of these monks who live up north, they believe that in order to transcend violence, you have to understand it" she said.

"So instead of praying, they train to fight, as a way to achieve inner peace" Hannah said "Just think what my life would've been like if I had been adopted by those monks instead of my father; same person but totally different beliefs, makes you think doesn't it, sometimes I'd give anything to be free of this stupid vow" she said almost bitterly.

Sparrow heard Theresa's voice in her head as Hannah said that last sentence _"Promising"_ she said.

Reaching the main chamber, Hannah walked over to the next portcullis and stood on the pressure plate; the portcullis gate opened with a rattle of chains and clanking of metal.

Sparrow took point and scouted ahead armed with her sword in her right hand, soon she gave the all clear and the rest of the group moved up.

Soon they reached the room where the next water fountain was; the fountain statue stood on the stone floor and the pressure plate to make the water flow was in a higher place.

"Right this is the second chamber, one of you has to stand on the pressure plate up there to make the water flow" Hannah instructed, Sparrow walked up the stairs leading to the pressure plate and when Hannah settled the urn underneath the stone bowl of the statue, Sparrow stepped onto the plate.

Water soon began to flow from the bowl and into the urn Hannah was holding steady.

Suddenly wisps started flying into the room and diving into the ground, Hal sprang into action and drew his katana and began to get to work, slicing into the brittle bones and rotted flesh of the zombies.

Sunny helped two biting the legs of the zombies, bringing them down and then tearing out their throats.

Sparrow used both her rifle and her magic to attack the zombies from a distance, breaking their bones with bullets or setting them alight with fire.

"Keep going! The water's nearly stopped!" Hannah shouted as Hal, Sunny and Sparrow fought the walking dead.

Soon the water stopped flowing and wisps stopped coming into the room.

"C'mon! There might be more of them!" Hannah said as she lifted the water filled urn and started to hurry out of the room with Sparrow and co. following close behind.

Reaching the main room, there was one final door left.

"Last one, hopefully there aren't any of those things in there" Hannah said as the portcullis gate rose, suddenly Sunny ran under the gap of the gate and ran ahead before anyone could stop him.

Hannah stepped off the pressure plate stopping the gate from moving and it stood still.

"HEY! Get back here!" Hannah shouted into the distance of the passage.

A few tense moments passed by and Sunny came bounding back down the passage with something in his mouth.

He slipped under the gate and showed what he had to everyone wagging his tail energetically; it was a head of one of the zombies Sunny then dropped the head on the ground with a big dog grin on his furry face.

"Ugh, yuck, you don't know where that's been" Hannah exclaimed, Sunny's expression dropped a little.

"Oh but you're a good boy for ripping its head off, who's a good dog? Who rips the heads of hollow men off?" Hannah said praising Sunny's efforts, Sunny barked happily and Hannah stood on the pressure plate making the portcullis rise again until it reached all the way to the top.

"Remind me to not let him lick my face again" Hannah said out of the corner of her mouth as the group walked down the corridor "I'll try" Hal said as they walked down the dim corridor.

Coming to a large room with stone tiling, as soon as the group entered the room, the portcullises closed with a clatter and wisps flew into the room and began diving into the ground and hollow men burst out of the ground.

Sparrow and Hal snapped into action, drawing their swords and got to work, slicing into the hollow men. For each one they took down, two more hollow men appeared in its place.

Sparrow sheathed her longsword and began weaving her hands together, conjuring a fireball of significant size, Hal saw what Sparrow was doing and began to fight to keep the hollow men off her as their white eyes saw what she was doing and began to converge on her position.

Sparrow kept weaving her hands in patterns as Hal hacked and slashed at the hollow men as they shambled towards Sparrow.

The inferno spell was reaching significant size in Sparrow's hands now and she could barely contain it, sweat ran down her face as she felt the heat coming from it; with a roar, Sparrow released the spell and a great wave of fire exploded and hit the hollow men, bursting them apart whilst not harming Hal, Sunny and Hannah.

Sparrow fell down onto her knees exhausted from the effort of the will spell, but there was no rest for the weary as one final wisp flew into the room and dove into the ground and out from the ground appeared another hollow man, only this one was without a head and was wearing archaic looking armour and wielding better weaponry than the other hollow men had.

"Lieutenant, I-I don't think I have enough strength to fight for now" Sparrow said exhaustedly as she knelt on the ground, trying to recover her strength, Hal nodded and replied "Don't worry, I'll take care of this, you just rest alright?" he said.

Sparrow nodded as Hal stepped forward to fight the headless hollow man.

The headless hollow man just waved its weapons around wildly and shambled about aimlessly trying to find its victims, Hal pulled out his DMR rifle and fired upon the headless hollow man, first by aiming for its weapons, shooting them out of its gauntleted hands.

The headless hollow man having its weapons shout out of its hands now had a heading so to speak of where to find its prey and began shuffling towards Hal waving its heavy gauntleted hands like clubs.

Hal aimed his rifle at the zombie's knees and fired; the rounds broke through the armour and knee caps of the hollow man, the hollow man fell down to the ground, Hal strode forward and delivered four more shots to the body of the hollow man and the hollow man's body broke apart.

The portcullises opened up again, Hal dashed over to Sparrow's side and began to run a diagnostic of her vitals; so far she was just exhausted from the massive effort of will energy, Hal made a note to study this will energy when he got the chance to, Sparrow's depleted energy levels could be brought back to normal levels by giving her some food and drink to replenish her energy levels.

"Here eat this, you'll need your strength" Hal said as he dug out of his pack some fruit juice and some beef jerky, Sparrow quickly ate the food and drink and while she did that, Hal couldn't help but notice, strange blue tattoo like markings forming on her face, an odd but familiar thought of the marking made Sparrow look uniquely attractive appeared in Hal's mind.

Hal shook his head slightly to clear the thought from his mind and asked Sparrow if she could stand up and walk, Sparrow slowly stood up and signalled that she was ready to move again.

"Hopefully we won't find any hollow men in the last chamber" Hannah said as they walked down the corridor.

"That was amazing what you did back there; I've never seen anything like it in my entire life" she added looking at Sparrow, Sparrow shrugged her shoulders and said "I didn't know I could that either, but I don't think I'll be trying it again anytime soon" she said in a tired voice.

"Don't worry if there are any 'hollow men' in the last chamber I'll take care of them" Hal said as he drew his knives and sharpened them on his shoulder guards, the gritty slide of metal against metal sounding out.

"Umm… is he always like this?" Hannah asked whispering to Sparrow, Sparrow gave a tired smile and whispered back "A bit, but he's a nice enough guy" she replied.

"I heard that" Hal said, not looking over his shoulder, Sparrow smiled a bit while Hannah gave a nervous chuckle.

Reaching the last room which was grand and spacious with rings of stone in the centre of the room and a stairway leading to an iron barred gate.

"This is the last chamber where we bless the water, one of you has to stand on the pressure plate over there to let the sunlight through" Hannah instructed, Hal walked over to the pressure plate Hannah indicated and waited until Hannah gave the signal and then stood on it.

A pillar of pure golden sunlight pour through the ceiling onto where Hannah knelt with the light falling into the water urn that Hannah had carried with her the entire trip.

Hannah then began to speak some words that she had obviously been told to say to bless the water "Lords of Light, bless this water so that new life may rise, as old life returns to the earth, so do we all" Hannah chanted.

Suddenly the iron gate at the top of the stairwell opened and a nervous agitated monk appeared and cried out "Sister Hannah!" he shouted.

Hannah recognised him and replied "Brother Brian? What's going on?" she asked.

Brother Brian replied "It's one of Lord Lucien's men! He's holding your father hostage! He's got a gun!" he cried, Hannah then began to run up the stairwell, her heavy feet pounding the ground as she reached the top of the stairs, she shoved the water urn into Brother Brian's arms and shouted "I have to rescue my father!" she shouted and tore out with her bare hands a marble hammer from a nearby statue and charged out through the gate.

"C'mon, we better make sure she doesn't get killed!" Sparrow said as she raced up the stairs, Hal and Sunny following her closely.

_Outside the Wellspring Cave…_

As the trio exited the cave, Hal could see in the distance, Hannah racing up the dirt path leading towards the Temple of Light.

Grabbing Sparrow and Sunny the dog, Hal leapt down the small cliff, landing with a thud onto the dirt path and the trio began to race up the pathway, Sparrow could hear Hannah's voice threatening to kill Lucien's agent.

"Let go of my father!" Hannah shouted.

Hal heard the agent's voice, strangely deep and distorted "You're coming with me, if you don't, I'll kill the old man!" the agent said.

"Let him go now or I'll kill you myself!" Hannah bellowed.

BANG!

The shot obviously signalled that Hannah's father was shot right in front of her.

"Father!" came Hannah's anguished cry.

"Don't make me kill you too" the agent's voice said.

Another gunshot rang out and a sickening crunch of something heavy crushing bone sounded out as Sparrow and Hal arrived on the scene.

Hannah was kneeling by her father's prone form, her head in her hands sobbing hysterically "Father! You idiot! You stupid fool! I could've stopped him!" she sobbed, tears running down her face.

_The next morning…_

The Golden Acorn was planted into the grave of Hannah's father and watered with the blessed water taken from the Wellspring.

"I'm sorry father, not for breaking my vow, but for not breaking it sooner, I could've stopped him, and I vow to make Lucien pay for his crime" Hannah said resolutely, her eyes red from crying, Sparrow and Hal were looking solemn as Hannah said that statement and Sunny whimpered silently.

One of the monks nearby said "Sister Hannah, the blessing" he said nervously, Hannah turned her face towards the ocean and said "You do it" she said.

"Lords of Light, bless this acorn so that new life may rise. As new life rises, so shall we." the monk said with that said he and the other monks began to leave and walk down the hill leading to the village and the temple.

Hannah looked at the retreating monks scornfully and called out to them "Is that it then? My father's dead and life just goes on as before?!" she shouted scornfully.

A flash of blue light came out of nowhere and Theresa the Seer appeared.

"The other monks may believe that Sister Hannah, but your eyes have been opened" Theresa said.

"Who are you? And what do you want?" Hannah asked with a snarl.

Theresa looked unperturbed and replied "Someone who can tell you much about Lucien, what his plans are and more; all you have to do is take my hand and I shall show you sister Hannah" she said.

"Call me Hammer!" Hannah said with anger in her voice as she took Theresa's hand and in a flash of blue light the two disappeared.

Sparrow could hear Theresa's voice in her head _"It will take some time for Hannah to overcome her grief but we have the Hero of Strength now, you and the Lieutenant can take the time now to upgrade some of your equipment. Come back to the Guild when you are ready." _Theresa said before cutting the link.

Sparrow turned to Hal and said "There's a sale on in the town, I think, Theresa suggested it might be good to upgrade some of our equipment" she said, Hal looked at her behind his visor and said "Agreed, I heard that there's a job offer at the local wood mill here chopping wood, we're going to need more gold, I'm almost out" he said.

"Let's do the wood chopping job first, then upgrade" Sparrow said and set off down the hill with Sunny and Hal following close behind.

Hal was slightly distracted by the almost hypnotic sway of Sparrow's curvy hips and buttocks, again strange yet familiar thoughts like last night's appeared in Hal's mind.

_Why do I have these thoughts about Sparrow's body in my head? And why do I like them so much?_ Hal thought as he shook his head to clear his mind of such thoughts.

Sparrow could feel Hal's eyes on her shapely behind as they walked and she unconsciously put a bit of extra sway to her admirable behind, her hips thrusting side to side as she walked.

Hal's mouth went curiously dry as he watched Sparrow's hips sway hypnotically and more thoughts of Sparrow's bare body appeared in his head, shaking his head hard, Hal walked faster ahead of Sparrow so he wasn't watching her behind.

Sparrow arched an eyebrow, curious as to why Hal would walk ahead of her but thought nothing of it.

Reaching the lumber mill, Sparrow and Hal talked to the owner of the mill asking about the wood cutting job; apparently there were two wood cutting positions to fill and the owner gave them both the job.

The two soon got to work, grabbing a wood cutting axe each and got to work.

Hal gaped slightly as Sparrow took off her jacket and blouse, revealing her bare torso and arms to the world; her body barely looked as though it had been in battle before and her skin was a creamy beige colour and her arms were toned and her well-formed breasts were held neatly by a plain white bra.

The act of revealing her bare torso to the world drew a crowd of men to Sparrow as she worked at chopping logs of wood, all of them were drooling slightly and had dazed dreamy looks on their faces.

"Is she single?" a male spectator asked dazedly as he watched Sparrow work, Hal ignored the crowd of love-struck men and continued working on his pile of wood, making fast neat chops with his axe.

This went on for a couple of hours but soon Sparrow called for a halt and put her blouse and jacket back on, much to the groans of disappointment from the crowd of male villagers, but Hal was thankful for that as for some reason he didn't like those other men looking at Sparrow with those love-struck looks on their faces.

Hal and Sparrow went up to the lumber mill owner and asked for their pay and received 3,457 gold crowns each.

The trio then went to the local stalls and bought extra ammunition, food and medical supplies and some necessities such as some rope and whetstones to sharpen their swords and knives.

"Hey Lieutenant, why don't we take a carriage back to Bowerstone? It'll save us our feet" Sparrow suggested.

"Not sure a carriage will be able to hold my weight Sparrow" Hal replied "Would there be a spell to make me lighter?" he then asked.

"Not sure, maybe if you concentrate and will your armour to be lighter it might work" Sparrow replied.

Hal then brought his hands up in front of him and concentrated on the thought of making his armour lighter, a small ball of will appeared in Hal's hands and it slowly began to revolve around Hal's armour bathing it an ethereal blue glow.

A few seconds and the blue ball of light faded away.

"You feel any different?" Sparrow asked.

"I'm not sure, let me try something" Hal said and walked over to a wooden fence and sat on it, a slight creaking of wood but the wooden fence held Hal's weight easily.

"Looks like it worked" Sparrow said as she watched Hal sit on the wooden fence, "Looks like it did, but I don't risk it being lightweight all the time, I'll return it to normal when we get to Bowerstone" Hal said as he jumped off the fence.

"C'mon the carriage is this way" Sparrow said as she lead the way to the stables on the Rookridge road.

Reaching the stables, Sparrow and Hal conversed with the carriage driver and bought two one-way tickets to Bowerstone and paid extra for Sunny to ride in the carriage with them.

Hopping aboard the carriage, the carriage was then on its way to Bowerstone.

_To be continued…_

A/N: whew, that took a while, another chapter done and dusted and guys please leave a review, I do take into account that you mightn't have enough time to leave a review or something preventing you from doing it, but it's getting to the point where's it rather rude of you guys not leaving reviews for my stories.

Also if you'll note, I'm working on a new story; it's a crossover between Skyrim and Justice League and the premises is this, basically the Dragonborn and his wife Aela the Huntress and Odahviing and Durnehviir end up in the DCAU universe using an Elder Scroll to free Durnehviir from Soul Cairn and join the League in fighting the White Martian invasion.

Also I've set up a poll regarding romantic pairings, I know you're going to say that I mentioned that the Dragonborn and Aela are married but I've made their marriage an open marriage where they can take whomever they want to their beds and still be together but I plan on Aela only satisfying herself with women whenever her husband is not around; so far I've put about 24-26 girls on the poll a mixture of female heroes, villains and civilians, and I'm kinda leaning towards Zatanna or Black Canary or Huntress or Vixen or Supergirl. You can vote up to eleven girls on the poll, so please have a vote and I'll let you know when I post this new story.

Anyway, cheers for reading this chapter and for putting up with my rant and remember to review and subscribe.


	6. Chapter 6

Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die Chapter 6

The story so far: Sparrow and Hal have now recruited Sister Hannah now Hammer the Hero of Strength, and are now making their way back to Bowerstone towards the Guild Cave to make their next move.

A/N; hallo everyone, just a couple of rants and notes from me, I've decided to change Sparrow's template once again, and I promise this time will be the last; I've decided to change Sparrow's physical and vocal template to VS newcomer Hungarian supermodel Barbara Palvin, as I think that she has a couple of qualities that could really carry her off as Sparrow/Hero of Bowerstone, plus the fact that she is extremely attractive and has purity, innocence and sexiness all wrapped up in this one bundle, plus she's extremely confident without being arrogant as well, something I liken to Femme Sparrow, if you don't know who Barbara Palvin is, just type her name in Google or Google images or Wikipedia and prepare to fall in love with her incredible beauty and personality.

I've also decided to change Noble Six's physical and vocal template as well to one of my favourite actors and heroes, Karl Urban, he's a New Zealand actor who got his start in Hercules and Xena and moved onto LOTR as Eomer then played Sgt John Grimm AKA Reaper in the sci-fi action horror movie adaptation of popular game Doom and recently has portrayed comic book character Judge Dredd in the recent movie Dredd, but I'm keeping Six's hair colour the same, platinum blonde I'll just make it seem like Six dyes or bleaches it blonde as it is canonical that Kelly-087 when she was young dyed her hair different colours, but those template changes will be the last time, unless someone starts to petition me to change Six's and Sparrow's templates again.

Anyways notes over, to the story now.

Now we begin;

Travelling by horse drawn carriage took a lot less time travelling to Bowerstone whereas travelling on foot would've taken a day's journey to travel to Bowerstone.

The trio reached Bowerstone by mid-day and exited the carriage and took the time to stretch their cramped muscles.

Hal lifted the spell that made his armour lighter and after the effects of the spell went away, Hal felt his familiar armour weight return.

"Where to now?" Hal asked.

"The Guild, this way" Sparrow said and exited out of the large gate leading out towards Bower Lake and Hero Hill.

Hal and Sunny followed Sparrow out towards Bower Lake, crickets hummed in the air and leaped high in the air from one spot to another.

The top of Hero Hill stood in the slowly approaching dusk; Sparrow and co. walked up the winding path hewn into the rock and reached the top of the stone hill where the glowing portal of the cullis gate leading to the Guild shone in the dusk light.

Stepping into the cullis gate, Sparrow felt her body being pulled away from Hero Hill and into the Guild Cave.

_The Chamber of Fate_

Sparrow stepped into the dim chamber away from the cullis gate and soon after she stepped out of it, her faithful dog Sunny and her companion the Spartan appeared as well.

In the centre of the room, where a few oil lanterns and candles illuminated the cavernous room, stood Theresa and the Hero of Strength, Sister Hannah now Hammer, carrying the large marble hammer over her shoulder that she had taken from the Wellspring cave.

Theresa then noticed Sparrow and co. and said "You have returned at last, good, I have new information on the Hero of Will and where he can be found" she said.

Hammer then spoke up "Theresa, told me about what happened to you and your sister Sparrow, no-one should have to go through that" she said sadly, Sparrow looked as though for a moment she was about to cry, she didn't but her eyes did look a little watery and she murmured "It's fine" she murmured.

"So where is the Hero of Will?" Hal asked, moving the conversation back to its original direction.

"The Hero of Will is Garth, you remember him don't you Sparrow? That night in Lucien's tower" Theresa said to Sparrow, a flash of recognition passed through Sparrow's eyes as she said "Yes I remember him now" she said as she remembered that moment entering Lucien's tower, the dark skinned man with strange glowing blue lines running all over his face and body and him passing Rose and her.

"Hold on, he was in Lucien's tower, how can we trust him?" Hammer asked.

"While it was true that Lucien and Garth worked together in the past, they had no idea about each other's' true intentions; Garth for the most part believed Lucien's interest in the Old Kingdom was purely academic, like his own and Lucien for his part merely believed Garth to be a brilliant scholar" Theresa explained.

"When each learned the truth about the other, their partnership ended on less than mutual terms and my visions have shown me that Garth is in Brightwood Tower, toiling on some ancient technology there" Theresa said "No doubt he intends to stop Lucien's plans, Sparrow you and the Lieutenant must go there and inform him of our intentions" she added.

"What about me?" Hammer asked indignantly.

"I'm afraid sister Hannah, that it would be better that only Sparrow and the Spartan go alone to avoid detection and you would simply draw attention to this endeavour" Theresa explained.

Sparrow and Hal turned to leave when they heard "Why are you staring at me like that?" Theresa asked.

Hammer "This is the part where you say 'no offence'"

Sparrow bit her lip to avoid laughing out loud and Hal just quirked an eyebrow and they both left through the cullis gate.

_On top of Hero Hill_

Hal, Sparrow and Sunny then stepped out of the cullis gate and made their way down the stone hill.

"Any idea where Brightwood is?" Hal asked as they reached the bottom of the hill, Sparrow closed her eyes as if concentrating and the opened her eyes and said "It's this way" she said and walked in the direction of some ruins and a dirt path.

Walking on the dirt path, the trio soon reached a sign post with arrows on it with words on each of them.

Hal read one and it said _Brightwood 20 miles_ pointing down along the dirt path, Sparrow said "That's where I guessed it would be" she said with a small smile.

"What? You've got an inbuilt GPS in your head?" Hal asked humorously Sparrow arched an eyebrow in confusion.

"What's a 'GPS'?" she asked.

"Sorry, it means Global Positioning System, it's technology where I'm from that can tell you wherever you are and give the location of other places near you" Hal explained, Sparrow then took on a look of understanding and she said "Must be useful to have something like that if you're lost" she said with a small smile and she then set off down the road in the direction of Brightwood.

Hal and Sunny then set off after her, catching up with her and then they reached a small crest with two banners, one on either side, each one depicting a stylised skull and crossed swords.

"Somebody doesn't want visitors" Hal remarked as they walked over the crest and into the forest further.

_Brightwood Forest_

It was nightfall when Sparrow and co. reached Brightwood, Sparrow with her inbuilt GPS in her head, lead the way.

Going down the hill, the trio reached a small clearing where there was a gate to one side and a path leading past some ruins, further into the woods.

Sparrow instinctively knew that the gate lead to their target.

Opening the gate, Sparrow could hear Theresa's voice in her head _"There is something coming your way, I've never felt anything like it, be on your guard"_ Theresa's voice warned.

Walking up the path leading to Brightwood Tower, Hal noticed something very strange in the sky and stopped Sparrow and silently pointed to what he saw. Sparrow's eyes widened in utter surprise and shock; a giant upside-down pyramid floating through the air with no visible means of support, covered with Old Kingdom runes, heading towards Brightwood Tower.

Hal whispered to Sparrow "C'mon, it might be another of Lucien's agents, here to capture Garth, let's hurry" he said and set off up the path with Sparrow and Sunny following behind.

Soon within a few moments walking distance of the stairs leading towards the tower, the trio saw the floating pyramid hovering above the stairs; the giant monolith glowed a white colour then shot some lightning from itself.

The stream of lightning hit the ground and a pale white glow with small pillars of light spiked out; the glowing light subsided and in its place stood a group of men clad in black, wearing masks that covered their entire heads save their eyes, a strange collar was on each of the black clad men and they were wielding steel made swords and steel clockwork pistols holstered on their hips.

The black clad men then drew their pistols and began to fire upon Hal and Sparrow, bullets flickered against Hal's energy shields; Hal brought out his DMR rifle and aimed for the men's heads.

The NATO rounds streamed through the air and hit each of the black clad men in the head, killing them, strangely their strange collars sparked electricity as they died, what kind of collar was able to do that after someone died?

Sparrow stepped up with her rifle and fired some rounds at the black clad men; a couple of the black clad men drew well-made steel swords and charged towards Sparrow and Hal.

Conserving ammo, Hal drew his knives and walked forward to meet his opponents in battle; Sparrow drew her steel longsword and eagerly charged forward to meet the Spire Guards.

Sparrow took a running leap and spun in a circle to add extra velocity to her attack and stabbed into a spire guard, the blade of her sword plunging deep into the black clad man's chest.

The other spire guards began to surround Sparrow and tried to hack, slash and stab into Sparrow, Hal intervened by whirling his knives in deadly arcs, blood spraying out of flesh and splattering the ground, Sunny the dog snapped and bit into the guards' bodies, causing wounds.

As soon as the black clad guards were finished, Hal and Sparrow raced up the steps of the tower, where they could see a fire had formed, burning the timbers and scorching the stonework.

More Spire guards stood in their way, Hal drew his katana and went into Spartan Time mode and dealt death dealing strikes towards the black clad thugs, killing each and every one of them almost instantly.

As soon as the last guard fell to the ground lifeless, blood spurting from a deep wound in his neck, Sparrow looked at Hal with utter surprise in her blue eyes and said "Wow… just wow" she stated.

"C'mon! Let's keep going, we're almost there!" Hal barked and they proceeded to run up the flight of stairs, the blaze of the fires growing more intense.

Sparrow could hear shouts of two people.

"I'm never going back there! You hear me?!" one voice said, it was an accented baritone voice, Sparrow, Hal and Sunny soon came up to the highest room of the tallest building, their path blocked by burning debris, Hal could see past the blaze a dark skinned man with glowing blue tattoo like lines all over his face, neck, arms and hands, spectral swords surrounding him on the balcony of the tower.

There was another individual there as well, he was immensely tall and well built, but his general appearance was twisted and demonic, sallow pale skin and short spiky horns sprouting from his bald head and his mouth covered by the collar of his black coat and his eyes a glowing red demonic colour and in his gloved right hand was a broad bladed cruel looking sword.

The dark skinned man, Garth, shouted at the other man "You're a freak! Lucien's failed experiment!" he shouted, the other man spoke in a deep booming demonic voice.

"**You're wrong! Lord Lucien's experiment was a radical success!"**the man bellowed, lightning shot from the man's left hand and hit Garth, making him fall to his knees, the pyramid from earlier floated into view.

"**You are coming with me"** the demonic man said and lightning shot from the pyramid onto Garth and the man making them disappear into the pyramid.

The pyramid then floated rapidly away from the tower into the horizon where the moon was rising.

"Dammit" Hal said angrily as he thumped the scorched timbers blocking the way, making them crumble a bit under the force of his fist.

Sparrow heard Theresa's voice in her _"There was nothing you could've done, Lucien must have planned this very carefully, the man that took Garth was Lucien's Soldier, his Commandant, the man who commands Lucien's troops, gifted with great power"_ Theresa said.

Before Sparrow could ask what the pyramid was Theresa spoke answering her unspoken question _"What you saw earlier was a Shard, an ancient piece of Old Kingdom technology, Lucien must have discovered a means to control them, events are moving more swiftly then I anticipated. Come back to the Guild"_ Theresa said before cutting off the link.

Sparrow looked at Hal and said "There was nothing we could've done Lieutenant, it was well organised and planned from the beginning Garth left Lucien" she said, Hal looked at her and replied "You're right, but it still pisses me off that they got to Garth before we did" he said, slightly angry.

"Back to the Guild now?" Hal asked.

Sparrow nodded and walked down the steps of the stairs heading towards the grounds with Hal and Sunny following behind her.

Exiting the tower and onto the grounds, Hal took a moment to inspect one of the bodies; the strange collar around one of the corpses necks was very interesting, Hal ripped it off the dead spire guard to take back to Theresa and see if the blind seer could shed any light on the subject.

Walking out the gate and up the hill towards Bower Lake road, the trio made their way to the Guild cave.

_Bower Lake_

It was 9:15 pm when Hal, Sparrow and Sunny reached Bower Lake, they silently made their way up Hero Hill and used the cullis gate to enter the Guild cave.

_Guild cave_

Upon entering the Guild, Sparrow and co. were greeted by Hammer and Theresa.

"Something went wrong didn't it? I knew I should've gone!" Hammer exclaimed as Sparrow walked up to the table where Theresa was looking over a map.

"Events are moving more quickly than I expected, so we need to know how Lucien is recruiting his men" Theresa said as Hal sat down on the stone floor and began running a diagnostic on his weapons and armour.

"Well Lucien could easily afford to hire an army couldn't he? He's not strapped for cash that's for sure" Hammer said thoughtfully.

"Perhaps but the item the Spartan picked up tells me that these spire guards are not simple mercenaries, show us what you have found Lieutenant" Theresa said.

Hal complacently brought out the strange collar and put it on the table in front of Theresa, Theresa picked it up and ran her hands over it.

"Interesting, very interesting" Theresa murmured as she ran her hands over the collar.

"What is?" Hammer asked as she watched Theresa examine the collar.

"This collar binds and controls the wearer into doing what Lucien wants them to do, if they do not comply they are punished by having fragments of their memories and experiences removed, debilitating them slowly and if the wearer is killed, the collar explodes, rendering it useless" Theresa explained.

"That's, that's just evil!" Hammer exclaimed, Hal then spoke "Obviously Lucien doesn't want his lackeys getting any ideas of freedom and wants to keep them in line, only question is, what kind of men is Lucien is recruiting?" he said.

"An excellent point Lieutenant, there is an object that belonged to Lucien; his diary and there is also one person who knows where it is" Theresa said.

"Well, who is it?" Sparrow asked a little impatiently.

"When Lucien left Bowerstone Castle, he essentially abandoned his staff, and his personal butler, Jeeves, spends his days in the Cow and Corset in Bowerstone" Theresa replied.

"His butler? Bet he saw some dirty dealings, let's go!" Hammer said as she shouldered her hammer.

Theresa spoke "This requires delicacy and tact, something that you're not used to Sister Hannah, it is better that Sparrow and the Spartan go alone again" she said.

Hammer's face furrowed into a frown and she muttered "Fine, I'll be over here, being indelicate and tactless" she muttered loudly, going over to a corner to sulk.

"Go little Sparrow and make sure you come back with the diary, we need it to get to Garth" Theresa said motioning Sparrow to leave.

Sparrow nodded and whistled to Sunny who followed his mistress through the cullis gate, Hal followed after them.

_Hero Hill_

The trio made their way down the hill and set onto the dirt path leading to Bowerstone, they walked on the path quickly and quietly, not speaking a word.

Walking up the hill where remnants of the blockade were still there, Sparrow and co. made their way to Bowerstone.

_Bowerstone_

Entering the gates of Bowerstone at night, there wasn't a lot of activity in the town, a few guards were on patrol, the distant lights of the Cow and Corset tavern shone in the distance over the Bower Bridge.

Walking over the bridge towards the Cow and Corset, Hal and Sparrow walked inside the tavern whereas Sunny sat himself outside and waited for his masters to return.

The crowd was quiet tonight for the tavern, a couple of regulars were seated at tables, drinking their beers in silence and a couple of people were sitting at a table where a man wearing colourful clothing and a large top hat was dealing out some cards.

Sparrow walked over to the bar where the landlord was wiping some glasses.

"Excuse me?" Sparrow asked, the barman looked up, smiled and said "Evening miss, what can I do for you?" he asked.

Sparrow asked "We're looking for a man who used to be Lord Lucien's butler, his name's Jeeves, is he here?" she asked flashing the barman a smile.

The barman's brow furrowed a bit and he replied to her in a heated whisper "Yes, he's here, been causing a bit of a ruckus, getting drunk every night, upsetting customers, carrying on about how he knows all about Lucien's dealings, if he didn't prepay for his rent, board and drinks, I'd have run him out of here long ago, he's upstairs in the last room if you want to see him" the barman said before going back to wiping beer glasses.

Sparrow went back to Hal who was waiting by the door and spoke to him "The barman says that Jeeves is upstairs" she said, Hal nodded once and they both started to head up the stairs to the upper floor.

Sparrow could hear what would've once been a refined sophisticated voice but now laden with the slur of constant drinking of fire water and other substances that had no real right to enter the human body.

"How much would it cost to buy concubines?" the voice asked out loud.

Hal and Sparrow soon neared the room where the voice was coming from; entering the room Sparrow was surprised to see the butler that she had seen in Lucien's tower that fateful night; his clothes were dirty and grimy, stains of various alcoholic substances stained what would've once been a good dress shirt, the coat was starting to fray and look patchy, the trousers were now torn and dirty and the shoes were worn looking. This was Jeeves, formerly Lucien's butler.

Jeeves noticed Sparrow and Hal enter the room and he slurred out a few words "Oh, I see some potential buyers have come to see what's in Lucien's secret diary" he said slurring his words slightly as he nursed a bottle of cheap whiskey in his hands.

"It's got all sorts of juicy details written down in it." Jeeves said as he took a swig of whiskey "But I'll tell you what else is written down! My price!" he said belligerently.

Jeeves then threw a piece of paper at Sparrow who caught it; she unfolded the piece of paper to see what was written on it, it was crudely written as if the writer (Jeeves) had been drunk when writing it.

The note read; mY PryCe iS OnE ThOwsande GoLD PeEcEs, Not a PeNny less.

Sparrow frowned as she read the price of the butler, while she could easily afford to pay the man upfront, there was no telling what kind of thoughts were going through the drunken butler's head, he could easily demand more than just money, what with the comment about concubines earlier still ringing in Sparrow's head.

Hal solved the problem by pulling out a small drawstring bag of gold; that he had earned doing simple labour and tossed it at the drunken butler.

Jeeves in his drunken state fumbled as he caught the purse of gold and even in his less than sober state, he could see and feel the weight of the gold coins in the purse.

"Upfront eh? Well, you've paid my price and I shall give you the location of Lucien's Diary, it's a juicy little read I can tell you" Jeeves slurred as he pocketed the gold purse and drew out from another pocket a piece of paper and handed it to Sparrow.

Jeeves then said excitedly "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some money to spend!" he said with a giggle and he exited the room to head down to the bar to order some more alcohol which he surely didn't need in his current state.

Sparrow heard Theresa's voice in her head as Jeeves exited the room _"He's far too cowardly to doublecross you, find Lucien's diary and bring it back to the guild"_ Theresa's voice said before cutting off.

Sparrow then unfolded the piece of paper that Jeeves had given her and read what was on the note; the note wasn't a drawn map but rather a set of instructions telling the read where to find what they seek.

Sparrow read the note, it said: _I have written the location of Lucien's diary down, lest the firewaters I'm so fond of imbibing burn away my memory; I have buried the diary where three tree stumps grow near Hero Hill._

Sparrow scanned the note a couple more times, she knew the location of those three tree stumps, she had passed them a couple times whenever walking up or down Hero Hill.

"What does the note say?" Hal asked, looking at her through the polarised visor of his MJOLNIR helmet.

"It says the diary is buried where three tree stumps are near Hero Hill, I've seen them near the Hill" Sparrow replied as she folded the piece of paper and put it in her jacket.

"Let's go then" Hal said and they both exited the tavern, Sunny who was partially asleep woke as soon as his mistress and master exited the tavern; almost running over the bridge, the three made their way to Bower lake to find the three tree stumps where the object they sought was buried.

_Bower Lake_

Sparrow was almost sprinting towards Hero Hill, with Sunny following from a distance and Hal amazingly was keeping pace with her, hardly bothered by the speed at all, Sparrow shook her head and focussed on finding the tree stumps.

Reaching Hero Hill, Sparrow could see the three tree stumps standing there in the starlit darkness.

"There they are!" Sparrow shouted and she stopped a few steps away from the tree stumps; Sparrow was about to step forward and begin to dig for the diary when Hal put his arm on chest stopping her.

"Wait, something's not right" Hal said as he looked at the seemingly innocent tree stumps, Sparrow looked at her companion and asked "Whaddya mean?" she asked as she looked at Hal then at the stumps.

In response, Hal picked up a good sized rock and threw it at one of the stumps, a hollow thonk rang out as the rock hit the tree stump, Sparrow was about to say something to the Spartan when a rumbling gravelly growl interrupted her.

Lifting itself out of the ground stood a large creature made out of earth, soil, roots, rocks and the three tree stumps crowning its head; two greenish beady eyes gleamed out of two sockets and a large horizontal gash was on the lower part of the creature's face, two massive arms hung by the creature's sides.

Sparrow ran through her memories of the various lessons she had with Theresa on various creatures, only one creature match the description of what she just saw; Troll.

"It's a troll" Sparrow murmured, Hal looked at her and asked "A what?" he asked.

Sparrow looked at Hal and replied "A troll; a large creature that terrorises humans and guards places, blocking pathways and eats humans" she explained.

Hal replied in confusion "I thought trolls lived under bridges and charged you money to cross them" he said.

"Never heard of a troll doing that before" Sparrow said as she looked at the troll which was staring at them, not making a move, just staring at them as if daring them to come closer.

"Yeah, let's skip that, how do we kill it?" Hal asked as he looked at the troll just standing there.

Sparrow then began to explain the weaknesses of a troll "See those small holes on its body? That's where it's nerve tendrils will show, we have to destroy them to kill it, but the tendrils only show themselves occasionally and the troll will throw boulders and make the earth quake to kill us" she said.

"There's an old saying where I come from; the bigger they are, the harder they fall, plus I have a couple of surprises that make this bad boy fall real hard." Hal said fondling one of his grenades.

Sparrow brought out her rifle and steeled herself to move forward, Hal brought out his DMR rifle and slowly moved forward to engage the troll.

The troll saw Hal move forward and ripped out a chunk of earth and tossed it at Hal; Hal calmly dodged to the side and fired a round at a glowing tendril that poked itself out of the orifices of the troll, the tendril exploded as the bullet hit it, the troll roared out its pain and slammed the ground with its rocky fists; shockwaves crashed out and large cracks ripped into the ground.

Sparrow rolled to the side and fired off a round at another nerve tendril poking through the troll's body, the bullet whizzed through the air and hit the nerve tendril and burst it apart destroying it.

The troll roared again and slammed its fists into the ground, more miniature earthquakes ripped into the ground, Hal dodged the enormous cracks in the ground and he drew out a frag grenade and primed it and aimed carefully and tossed it.

The grenade landed in the open maw of the troll, the troll swallowed it, satisfied it has caught an annoying pest; when suddenly a large booming blast blasted its body open.

The troll having been defeated sank slowly into the ground until there was nothing but a large depression in the ground and the tree stumps no longer there.

Sparrow looked at Hal in amazement and said "How in the world did you do that?!" she asked trying not to squeal.

Hal looked at her and replied "Fragmentation grenade" he said holding up one his frag grenades showing Sparrow "Generates a blast up to fifteen feet radius, I have others that can stick to targets and burn them with plasma energy" he added as he put away the grenade.

"Well whatever you did, it certainly worked on taking out that troll" Sparrow said, Sunny barked and began sniffing the ground, obviously on the scent of something and began to follow the scent to where the depression was where the troll used to be.

"What's the dog doing?" Hal asked as he watched Sunny begin digging into the ground excitedly.

"He's found the diary, of course" Sparrow smiled as she brought out her shovel and walked over to where Sunny was digging and pushed the blade of her shovel into the soil and started to dig.

A few minutes of digging turned up an object the size of a book wrapped in cloth; this was the diary they had been looking for.

"What does it say?" Hal asked as Sparrow unwrapped it and opened it to a random page.

Sparrow opened the book to find all the words were written in some sort of runes and she said in surprise "It's all in runes!" she exclaimed, Hal took a look over Sparrow's shoulder and raised his eyebrows slightly, the runes that were on the pages of the book didn't correspond with anything he had seen in his lessons.

Sparrow heard Theresa's voice in her head again _"The book will do you little good without a translation, bring it back to the guild."_

Sparrow snapped the book shut and said "Let's head back to the guild, Theresa might be able to translate it" she said, Hal looked at her incredulously and replied "How? Isn't Theresa blind?" he asked rhetorically.

"Don't worry about that for now, let's just go back to the guild" Sparrow said as she started for walk up the pathway to the cullis gate with Hal and Sunny the dog following behind.

_To be continued…_


	7. Chapter 7

Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die Chapter 7

The story so far: having returned to Bowerstone and finding Lucien's Diary, Sparrow, Hal and Sunny the dog return to the Guild to have the diary translated and find out the next part of Lucien's plans.

Now we begin;

Sparrow and co. headed up the stone hill and entered the cullis gate to the Guild cave, Hal went through first then was followed by Sparrow and Sunny.

_Guild Cave_

Hal soon entered the Guild cave where Hammer and Theresa were waiting, soon after Sparrow and her faithful dog appeared out of the gate.

Theresa turned her blind hooded eyes to where Sparrow and Hal stood and said "You have retrieved Lucien's diary, give it to me and I shall translate it" she said.

Sparrow brought out the diary and handed it over to Theresa who set it on the table and opened it and began to read it as if she wasn't blind at all.

"Hmmm… fascinating, very interesting" Theresa murmured as she pored over the pages of the runic script.

Hammer then asked the elephant in the room question "How can you read all that? Aren't you? Y'know…" Hammer trailed away.

Theresa responded without looking up from the diary "I see in worlds other than this one" she said simply.

"Oh."

Theresa pored over the pages a few more times and looked up at everyone and stated "Westcliff, Lucien is recruiting his guards from Westcliff" she said.

Hammer snorted and said scathingly "Oh come on, Westcliff's a dump, full of thugs and whatnot, the only thing worth seeing is that Crucible they've got there" she said.

"What's the Crucible?" Hal asked.

Theresa answered him "The Crucible is an arena built after the fall of the Heroes Guild and the dismantling of the Witchwood Arena, those who win the Crucible are physically tough but mentally weak, ideal recruits for Lucien's army" Theresa explained.

"Well what are we waiting for?! Let's go! Meet you by the Bandit Road in Brightwood!" Hammer shouted her heavy feet pounding the ground as she ran over to the cullis gate leading out of the Guild.

"Last on there's a rotten hobbe!" she shouted over her shoulder as she entered the cullis gate and was whisked away to the top of Hero Hill.

Theresa smiled her ghost of a smile and said to Sparrow and Hal "Go after her, her enthusiasm won't wear off, though I wonder if it ever does" she said.

Sparrow smiled and looked at Hal; another strange thought appeared in Hal's mind as he looked at Sparrow's smiling face and for some reason he couldn't help but smile himself, a small smile unnoticed as it was hidden by his helmet though he was sure Sparrow could see his smile.

Sparrow then turned and whistled for Sunny to follow her through the cullis gate, Hal was momentarily distracted by the sway of Sparrow's curvy hips and buttocks.

Hal shook his head to rid himself of improper thoughts and saw out of the corner of his peripheral vision Theresa smiling widely as if amused by something he did.

"What?" Hal asked.

"Take care of her, Lieutenant" Theresa said smiling widely, Hal quirked an eyebrow, confused by that statement and shook his head and headed after Sparrow, Sunny and Hammer.

_Hero Hill_

Sparrow waited a few seconds for the Spartan to appear and her patience was rewarded when the armoured form of her… close friend appeared out of the blue pillar of light.

"What took you so long?" Sparrow asked as Hal exited the light.

"Nothing, just had to check my weapons" Hal said, giving Sparrow a little white lie and then said "C'mon let's go after Sister Hannah before she gets herself in trouble" he said and set off at a light jog down the pathway heading towards the Brightwood road with Sparrow and Sunny following close behind.

Hal could see the heavy footprints of Hammer's feet, signifying that she had been this way recently.

Reaching the Brightwood road, Hal, Sparrow and Sunny travelled along it with the morning sunlight creeping up over the horizon.

_Brightwood_

Entering Brightwood, Sparrow with her inbuilt GPS in her head, lead the way, Hal and Sunny followed after her.

Jogging past some ruins that Sparrow made a mental note to check later to see if anything of value was there, the trio soon went down a small slope and over a bridge coming to a crossroads, one direction leading to the right to what looked like a small dirt farm and the left-hand path leading further into the woods in the direction of some ruins.

Sparrow instinctively took the left-hand path, Hal was about to comment but saw Hammer's heavy footprints in the ground, leading along the left-hand path and followed after Sparrow and Sunny.

Soon after following the path, they came to a small ankle deep body of water where a few bandits were just standing around idly.

One bandit turned around and spotted Sparrow and co. and shouted out "Hey! Lookee here boys! Fresh meat!" the bandit shouted; the other bandits drew their rusty looking rifles from their backs and began to fire upon Sparrow and co.

Hal drew his DMR and retaliated; NATO rounds zipped through the air and hit their marks, causing some pain and anguish from the bandits.

Sparrow put her hands out in front of her and began to weave them in patterns, flames flickering around her hands, a couple of bandits realised what she was doing and immediately began to run towards her position.

Hal stood in front of them, his katana drawn, Hal held it in a low stance and waited for the first bandit foolish enough to get past him; the first bandit to fall to move forward was a rough looking character wearing an eye-patch and a coat and wielding a rusty cutlass.

The bandit took a wild swipe at Hal, the tip of his rusty blade brushing against the energy shield, Hal checked his energy shield monitor; the shield didn't even go down a sliver, Hal then repaid the bandit by slicing off his head, killing the bandit.

Sparrow had readied her spell which was an inferno spell and it was quite a large size, Sparrow had to use both hands to fling it at her target which was the bandit leader wearing a stag skull as a headdress; the crackling ball of flame soared through the air and hit the bandit chief, flinging him back a few paces, setting him alight.

Hal weaved in and out among the bandits like a wraith, his katana blade flickering barely seen but the bandits felt the sting of the Samarkand steel bite into their flesh, crying out in pain before their lives were ended by a blade piercing their hearts.

Sparrow wasn't idle, she used her longsword to slice into bandits intermittently using will magic to blast them with flames and lightning, Sunny helped as well by leaping onto bandits, tearing out their throats.

Soon all the bandits were dead, Hal sheathed his katana and stretched his shoulders and looked to Sparrow who was cleaning her longsword then sheathed it and whistled to Sunny who was sniffing one of the corpses.

The trio then proceeded past the water, with Sparrow leading the way; she seemed to know where she was going as Hal could see deep footprints that seemed to fit Hammer's foot size.

Walking past the ruins, the trio soon saw Hammer, standing there waiting for them by a sign post saying _Bandit Coast, 15 miles_.

Hammer saw them and said as the trio came near "Whaddya do? Get a job? Buy a house? I've been waiting here ages" Hammer said sarcastically and she hefted her weapon and proceeded to walk down the road, heading towards the Bandit Coast, Sparrow followed suit as did Hal and Sunny.

_The Bandit Coast_

Soon the group reached the Bandit Coast, a place infamous for the number of bandits and highwaymen prowling the coast and the road to Westcliff was blocked by an infamous barricade.

Walking along the pathway; on one side was dense forest and the other side was a sheer cliff face leading down to the ocean.

Sparrow heard Theresa's voice in her head as they walked along the pathway _"Lucien's writings are fascinating; you may wish to take the time to read them"_ Theresa said, evidently Hammer had heard Theresa's voice as she said out loud "Reading maybe nice, but I'd prefer a bit of action" she loudly.

"Be careful what you wish for" Hal said as he sighted some bandits sitting round a fire drinking bottles of firewater.

Hal brought out his DMR and was about to pick off the bandits from a distance when Hammer with weapon held out in front of her, roaring out a battle-cry charged ahead.

Sparrow sighed and drew her sword and charged forward after Hammer with Sunny following her; Hammer was having the time of her life swinging her marble hammer in wide arcs, sending bandits flying broken boned into the dense forest.

By the time Sparrow got to the sight of the fight, every bandit was lying on the ground broken and bloodied, either slowly dying or not moving at all, Hal rushed over to where and glared at Hammer behind his helmet.

Hammer noticed Hal glaring at her and asked "What? What did I do?" she asked.

"You charged ahead without any thought to a battle plan, I don't know if you're trying to play lone wolf but right now the lone wolf stuff stays behind" Hal growled.

Hammer looked indignant and was about to argue when Sparrow took a step between and said "Alright, break it up, we don't need to argue right now, right now we have more important things to do, like getting to Westcliff. Alive." Sparrow said shooting Hal and Hammer a 'don't argue with me' look.

Hal sighed and said "Fine, but next time, can we not rush off headfirst into battle?" he said giving Sister Hannah a look who just shrugged and said "Fine." She stated and shouldered her hammer and straightened her shoulders.

The group then proceeded to walk further down the path, fighting more bandits then dropped out of the trees or jumped out of the bushes, Hal used his assault rifle and sprayed into the bandits, Hammer used her terrible strength to slam her hammer into her opponents, Sunny bit and nipped the legs of bandits and Sparrow used magic to blast bandits with fire and lightning.

Fighting past the bandits, the group came up to some ruins where a bandit camp was situated, the bandits there numbered in at five dozen and the bandits charged forward, swords and cudgels drawn with others taking cover behind low walls and crates and used flintlock rifles to fire upon the group.

Hal began to use his DMR to pick off the snipers while Hammer charged in swinging her hammer sending bandits flying into rocks and bushes and Sparrow used her longsword with precision to slash apart bandits and Sunny finished off downed bandits that the rest of the group had not gotten to.

Soon the five dozen bandits had either fled or were dying, Hal loaded a fresh clip into his rifle and looked around at the camp, Sparrow was led by Sunny over to a treasure chest which contained a purse of five hundred gold crowns which she pocketed.

Soon the group moved on; going past the cliff line Sparrow and co. reached a large wooden gate.

"So this must be the infamous barricade blocking the way to Westcliff? It doesn't look so tough to me" Hammer remarked and she walked up to it and readied her hammer and in one swift movement Sister Hannah's hammer slammed into the wooded gate breaking it open.

The bandits behind the gate had not expected anyone to get this far and one bandit shouted to a strange fellow dressed in black wearing a bandanna covering his head with eye holes "Boss! They've broken through!"

The 'boss' spoke in an eloquent well-spoken voice "Stand and fight you cowardly knaves!" he shouted and with an improbable effort of acrobatics and lower body strength the 'boss' leapt up high in the air to the top of a ruined stone tower and watched.

Hal drew his katana and moved forward to engage the bandits, Hammer charged in without any regard to her life and Sparrow drew her rifle and began to fire into the ranks of bandits; the group decimated the bandits and the 'boss' up at the top of tower leapt down and drew a well-made steel katana and with a series of flips and acrobatics, moved towards Hal who he deemed the most dangerous.

This assassin was very well trained judging by the way he held his sword and twirled before making a lightning fast strike; the tip of the assassin's blade struck against Hal's energy shields, the shields flared a bit and went down a sliver but that didn't stop Hal from retaliating by booting the assassin in the chest.

The assassin was forced back a few steps and clutched his chest in pain, Hal then took the moment of distraction and slashed at the assassin.

The assassin barely managed to block the blade of Hal's katana, Hal followed up with an uppercut with his left fist; the force of Hal's punch snapped the assassin's neck and head with a sickening crunch and he crumpled to the ground dead.

The bandit camp was decimated and Hal took the time to see what supplies he could salvage; Sparrow was led over to a spot of the camp by Sunny where there was another chest containing a well-made heavy oak crossbow which she put in her pack, maybe she could sell it for some gold at Westcliff.

The group soon then found the bridge leading to Westcliff and crossed it to enter the wilds of Westcliff.

_The wilds of Westcliff._

The group entered the wilds of Westcliff, on the path beside them was a ivy leaf covered chest that Sparrow opened to find a well-made steel cutlass; it seemed to better than her longsword so Sparrow took it to replace her longsword, figuring she could sell her longsword for some gold along with the oak crossbow she found.

As the group walked along the path, Sunny had his tail between his legs, whimpering, Sparrow gave Sunny a gentle pat on the head and gave him a treat to eat, Sunny ate the treat and immediately perked up.

As they walked the path, Hammer spoke "I've heard all sorts of stories about Westcliff; it's supposed to be infested with balverines" she said in a hushed voice.

"What's a balverine?" Hal asked as they walked the path down a slope.

Sparrow answered "Balverines, from what Theresa told me, are savage creatures far stronger than a regular person, can leap impossible heights and distances and they can turn people into balverines via bite" she said.

Hal gave a humph, Hammer continued talking "I've heard one story about balverines; there was this family in Westcliff that got attacked by balverines, the kids survived and a slaver found them, he took the poor things back to his camp and locked them up, later the kids turned, broke out of the cages and ripped everyone in the camp to shreds" she said as she gripped her hammer nervously.

As the group walked down a hill, Hammer exclaimed "There's one of them now!" she said pointing in the distance, Hal saw the balverine; it was vaguely humanoid with dark fur and a tail, its face was ugly and a fang filled maw in place of a mouth and piercing yellow eyes and large taloned hands gripped the stone archway it was perched on.

The balverine noticed them and it stood up on its back legs and gave a shrieking roar and leapt into the trees becoming invisible as it disappeared into the forest.

"Bugger it ran off!" Hammer said as they ran down the hill "Where do you think it got to?" she asked out loud, Hal didn't say anything as he brought out his assault rifle and flicked off the safety.

The group then proceeded down the hill, keeping a weather eye out for the creature that ran off; distant snarling and roaring was heard in the distance.

Hal looked up in the trees and dropping down out of the trees were two balverines; the balverines were almost Hammer's height and were wiry looking and those talons looked like they could do some damage.

Hal reacted by firing a few NATO rounds into the nearest balverine, the creature must have Kevlar for skin as it took five NATO rounds at almost point blank range, Sparrow drew her new cutlass and swung it at the balverine near her; the balverine easily dodged the attacks and retaliated by swiping at Sparrow with a taloned hand.

Sparrow barely managed to avoid the razor sharp talon before using a sweep kick to knock the balverine off its feet, the balverine dodged the sweep kick and swiped at Sparrow again, this time managing to score a couple of cuts on Sparrow's shoulder.

Sparrow gritted her teeth through the pain and pressed her attack on the creature, managing to score a couple of slashes on the balverine's chest; the balverine screeched its pain and shoved Sparrow back, Hammer quickly swung her hammer at the creature, scoring a heavy blow on the creature's ribs, the creature roared out its pain and leaped up into the trees, disappearing in the branches.

Hal drew his knives and went into Spartan time and slash at the balverine, his knives spraying arcs of black blood onto the ground, the balverine didn't last long against the onslaught and fell to the ground breathing shuddering gasps as it lay there dying.

Hal took a biometric scan of the creature and found its body temperature to be higher than a human's body temperature, that interested Hal as he finished off the creature by cutting its throat and watched it slump on the ground dead.

The balverine that Sparrow and Hammer were facing soon dropped down behind Sparrow who reacted on pure instinct and stabbed the creature deep in the chest, pushing her cutlass blade all the way down to the hilt, reaching the creature's heart, the creature then dropped to the ground dead as its heart was cleaved in two by the blade.

"That was brilliant!" Hammer shouted, Sparrow was about to shoot a look of incredulity at the Hero of Strength as Hammer continued "All my life I've been praying and upholding a vow of peace but right now we've fought off two monsters and now this road is a little bit safer because of us!" Hammer said excitedly.

"Great, let us know when you find out the meaning of life" Hal muttered sarcastically as he sheathed his knives, Hammer looked at him indignantly while Sparrow smothered a giggle with her hand as she sheathed her cutlass still dripping blood from its first kill.

"Let's keep moving, I don't want to stay in one place for too long" Hal said as the group then proceeded down the hill and reaching the ruins of what would've once been a woodcutter's home.

A woman's scream sounded out from around the bend up a hill, Hammer heard the scream and shouted "Someone's in trouble, let's go!" Hammer then ran up the hill with her heavy feet pounding the ground.

Hal gave a sigh and followed after Hammer as did Sparrow and Sunny; reaching Hammer who was comforting a woman who looked as though she shouldn't be travelling the woods alone.

"Are you alright Miss? What happened?" Hammer asked comfortingly, the woman was almost in hysterics as she sobbed out an answer "They killed my husband and they took my poor Timmy!" the woman wailed as she clutched her face with her hands.

"It's gonna be alright! Can you tell us where they took him?" Hammer asked, Hal took a scan of the hysterical woman and found her core body temperature was the exact same match as a balverine's; drawing kukri knife he stabbed the woman in the gut deeply.

"What are you doing!?" Hammer shouted but she was surprised as was Sparrow when the woman growled deeply and laughed in a deep bestial voice and jumped high into the trees, disappearing entirely.

"What was she?! How did you know?!" Hammer shouted her questions at Hal who was wiping his knife calmly and replied

"I figured that if the balverines were here they would've killed the woman before we got here and I guessed that she was one of them" he said calmly.

"Let's just go, before more of those things turn up" Sparrow said nervously as she touched the handle of her cutlass, ready to draw it in a split second to stab something with it.

Walking down the path past the remains of a slaver camp they walked down the hill further into the wilderness, past some ruins, that Sparrow made a note to explore later. Soon the group crossed a bridge over a river leading to the ocean and Sparrow could see the slowly rebuilding Spire on the horizon.

Reaching the ruins of a castle, the foursome saw Balverines watching them from the top of the ruined walls, watching them silently.

"Why aren't they attacking?" Hammer whispered as she watched the balverines watching them.

"Probably because they want us to go into the ruins" Hal said as he kept a steady grip on his DMR.

Walking calmly into the ruins, the group found a set of stairs leading downwards, having no other option but to go into the ruins, the group entered the Howling Halls.

_Inside the Howling Halls…_

The halls were well illuminated when Sparrow and co. entered them.

Walking silently down the passage, Sparrow could hear the growls of balverines and she swore she saw a shadow shape itself into a balverine and grabbed Hal's hand in her shock, Hal looked at her behind his silver polarised visor, Hammer almost giggled in spite of the situation at the blush on Sparrow's face who hurriedly let go of Hal's gloved hand and mumbled something under her breath.

Walking down the hallway the group came upon some ornate doors, Hal pushed the doors open to reveal a cavernous room with pillars holding up the ceiling and a pit filled with spikes went across the room separating the group from the exit.

Standing in front of Hal, Sparrow, Hammer and Sunny was the hysterical woman from earlier and she still had the stab wound in her stomach given to her by Hal.

The woman looked at them all with demonic yellow eyes and a smug expression on her face.

"_**Welcome to our home, do you like? We do try to tidy up for our guests but now it is time for dinner"**_ she said in her deep bestial voice.

She then yelled loudly for all her 'children' to hear _**"Children! I bring you flesh!"**_ she said and leapt high up into the air; as if on cue brown skinned balverines dropped down from the ceiling and roared and snarled at the group.

Sparrow whipped into action by drawing her cutlass and charged forward to meet her bestial opponents in combat, Hammer swung her hammer in an arc and hollered a battle cry and charged forward, her weapon like a battering ram.

Hal drew his katana and activated his sprint module to further increase his speed and charged forward; going into Spartan Time, everyone seemed to slow down, a balvorn creature screamed and charged forward, all limbs galloping the ground but its speed was nothing compared to Hal's, Hal brought his sword into the creature's neck, severing its head clean from its neck and shoulders.

Sparrow hacked and slashed at the balverines as they came near her, blood spraying out in arcs and splattering the ground, Sunny leapt onto balverines and mauled them, a brown skinned balverine snarled at Sunny and clawed him on the back leg, Sunny yelped out in pain and fell to the ground whimpering.

Just as the balverine was about to deal the finishing blow, Sparrow sliced the balverine from neck to hip, causing its intestines to spill out, the act of her faithful dog being injured enraged Sparrow to her core and she let loose with all her rage and went berserk her eyes a flaming red colour, her will lines flaring brightly and there was an unmistakable aura of hatred & bloodlust about her.

Hammer slammed her weapon onto a balverine, crushing it and she yelled out "We can't keep this up! We have to get out of here!" she yelled.

Hal looked around for an exit and noticed a pillar that looked weak and he yelled out to Hammer "Hammer! The pillar there! Try and break it to make a bridge across the pit!" he yelled as he then slashed at a balverine that got too close.

Hammer nodded and ran her way through the carnage and began to push against the base of the weak pillar, her muscles bulging with the strain of the effort.

Hal sliced another balverine with his katana and took a moment to observe Sparrow; she had gone completely berserk, not caring for injuries, blood staining her clothes and face then the female balverine's voice sounded out from above them.

"_**You have harmed the children! Now you must die!"**_

Dropping down from the ceiling was an immense white furred balverine; it was easily as big as Hammer and very muscular.

Sparrow roared a battle-cry and before Hal could stop her, she charged forward, her cutlass aimed for the white balverine's heart.

The white balverine almost seemed to smirk and casually swiped at her with a massive clawed hand; the wound went deep into Sparrow's midsection and the force of the blow tossed her aside and she skidded to the ground unconscious, Sparrow gave a small groan as she fell unconscious.

Hal saw Sparrow fall unconscious and he looked at the white balverine and said quietly "Now you've made me mad" he said evenly but there was a dark tone to his voice and the white balverine's eyes widened slightly.

Pulling out a frag grenade Hal charged to tackle the enormous balverine; the balverine's claws grabbed Hal which was exactly what he had intended to happen, Hal primed the grenade and shoved it down the beast's throat.

The beast awkwardly swallowed the explosive and a couple of seconds later, a great boom ripped apart the white balverine.

Hammer with a final effort of strength managed to push the pillar over and with a great creaking rumble the weak pillar fell across the spike line pit and created a bridge, she looked up from her task and her face fell when she saw Sparrow unconscious.

Hal and Hammer rushed over to Sparrow and Sunny who was injured and watching over his mistress with a whimper.

Hal then did a quick once over of Sparrow's injured body, the wound was deep and her pulse almost non-existent.

Hal was about to close Sparrow's eyes when there was a bright burst of light and her wound closed and there was nothing left but a scar and Sparrow gave a great gasp of air and she was awake.

Hal was almost spluttering "How on earth did you do that?! I thought you dead" he said in shock.

Sparrow looked at Hal and without a word she gave Hal a long hug, her full breasts pressing against his chest armour.

Hal was a bit surprised by Sparrow hugging him but he surprised himself even more when he hugged her back, just thankful that she was still alive.

Hammer then interrupted saying "C'mon it isn't safe to be here anymore" she hurriedly as she looked around the cavernous room and the low growls of balverines sounded out from the corridor behind them.

Sparrow reluctantly let go of Hal who in turn let her go and after applying some healing to Sunny who perked up and was ready to go again.

Making their way to the other side of the makeshift bridge and making their way up a spiral staircase, Hal then felt a nudging in his mind.

'_This way Warrior'_

A voice said in his mind, Hal looked around to see where the voice had come from.

"Lieutenant? Is something wrong?" Sparrow's voice asked, Hal looked at Sparrow who was watching him curiously and he replied

"I thought I heard something" he said as he looked around the passageway, Sparrow looked around as well and said

"It is pretty spooky, I thought I was hearing things as well" she said with a nervous chuckle.

'_This way Warrior'_ the voice said again in Hal's mind, Hal almost jumped at the sound of the voice in his head.

"Can't you all hear that?" Hal asked as he looked around the ruins.

"Hear what?" Hammer asked suspiciously as she looked around.

Hal felt something tugging on his mind, calling out to him and he felt it pulling him down a corridor.

"I'm gonna find out what it is, you three go on ahead" Hal said in a slightly distracted voice.

"You what? Don't go off on your own!" Hammer yelled at Hal's retreating back.

Sparrow stopped sister Hannah from going after Hal by putting a hand on her massive arm and said "C'mon, I'm sure the Lieutenant knows what he's doing, he can take care of himself" she said and lead Sunny and sister Hannah up the stairs towards the surface.

_Hal's Perspective…_

Hal walked down the dim corridor, following his gut instinct, flicking on his helmet lights to illuminate the corridor.

'_Keep going Warrior'_ the voice in Hal's head said.

"Yeah, yeah I'm comin'" Hal muttered sullenly as he walked down the corridor, following the call of the presence in his mind; reaching an ornate door, Hal approached and touched it.

The seal on the door, in the shape the same as Sparrow's guild seal, glowed a bright blue almost blinding Hal and the door swung open; inside was a crypt and a few coffins.

A dank musty smell hissed out of the crypt but went unnoticed as Hal's helmet filtered out the smell.

Looking around, Hal felt the presence leading him to one of the sarcophaguses, feeling the presence tell him to open the sarcophagus he was in front of, Hal pushed the lid off; with a dull boom as the stone lid thudded onto the floor, Hal found something that interested him very much.

It was a sword, a very well made weapon; the handle was made from the fang of some great beast and was a dull yellowy colour, the blade was single edged and seemed to be made for hacking and slashing opponents (A/n I'm trying to describe the Hobbit movie sword Orcrist, so just bear with me) and inscribed on the blade were the words _Balcrist the_ _Balvorn Slicer._

Hal hesitantly picked up the blade and the blade flashed a brilliant white light and energy flowed into Hal and he began to twirl the blade, getting the feel of the weapon, it seemed to be made for his hands and it felt perfectly balanced and he could feel the power the blade had.

Along the blade and the handle were some strange looking stones/gems, two were black, two were a silvery colour and there was golden and there was one that was a deep red colour.

Hal allowed himself a private smile and said to no-one in particular "I think I'll like this sword" he said with a slight smirk on his face.

_To be continued…_

A/N; well that's another chapter done and dusted, just to let everyone know, I'll be going dark for a couple of weeks, except via PM, I'm just trying to update my other stories.

To let you all know, I've created a new story; it's a Skyrim/Justice League story where my Redguard Dragonborn, his wife Aela the Huntress, Odahviing and Durnehviir end up in the DCAU universe and help found the Justice League, in regards to this story I've set up a poll showing potential romantic potentials for the Dragonborn and Aela to be with, there's about 27 or so girls on the poll, all of them a mixture of heroines, villainesses and civilians, so please have a vote on there, Wonder Woman is in the lead followed Supergirl and Zatanna in third place, it wasn't what I really hoped pairing wise and I was really hoping for Zatanna or even Supergirl to be in the lead but I'll abide by everyone's decision.

Also I'm doing a rewrite of my Halo/Lord of the Rings story as there's a few problems with it and I've decided to delete it and do a rewrite, it will be similar to Josephus Prime's Halo/LOTR story Chief of the Rings but there will be differences, "What kind of differences?" you ask, you'll just have to subscribe to me to find out when I post it.

I've gotten to thinking lately, maybe I should create a Skyrim/Marvel story, I'm just brainstorming ideas in my head and I'll probably have to ask other FF authors how to go about it and maybe I'll set up a poll showing romantic potentials, so just subscribe to me to find out when I post it.

Oh, and one other thing, REVIEW!

Cheers,  
Angry lil' elf


	8. Chapter 8

Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die Chapter 8

_A/N:_

_Now for some of the fan-mail (Some of the fan-mail will be from other chapters that I have felt a need to address)_

_Just A Question; I'm not sure I'd be able to pull it off, since I don't have intimate knowledge of the new Mortal Kombat game and whenever I try to watch a walkthrough video of it, I end up watching ones that have the player prattling on about useless irrelevant subjects and talking during character dialogue and cut-scenes. That really, really, REALLY irritates me when I watch those kinds of walkthroughs done by players who find it necessary to talk during gameplay and cut-scenes. And since I rarely take on challenges as I end up ballsing it up I'm gonna have to say no._

_Tsamoka (from chapter 6); don't worry I'm not gonna have Lucien doing horrible things to Sparrow when she's in the Spire but I also plan on keeping Noble Six out of the Spire, I'll probably keep him out of the Crucible challenge as well so Sparrow can prove to herself and everyone that she doesn't need Six backing her up all the time._

_Freedom Guard (chapter 6); good to hear from you mate, and don't worry that's the last time I'll change Sparrow's template, though I will make a minor change to Noble Six, I'll be giving him green eyes as I plan continuing this story into Fable 3 where Sparrow and Hal's young daughter whom I plan on being named after and looking like VS Angel Erin Heatherton and she'll get her green eyes from her father. I plan on pairing her with Ben Finn, the dashing Albion army captain and before the final fight with the Crawler I'll have Princess Erin go on a quest to find her father's armour and weapons as Hal and the Crawler have faced each other once before with Hal defeating but not killing the Crawler as Theresa shows up saying that it is not Hal's destiny to destroy the Crawler, so Hal leaves clues for his descendants to find his armour and weapons._

_Well that's all the relevant fan-mail for now and it's time for a recap on what's happened so far; in the last chapter we saw Sparrow and co. travel to Westcliff and fight their way past a bunch of balverines and Hal got called by some mysterious voice in his head and found a heroic weapon to use based off the Hobbit sword Orcrist and I do plan on giving Hal another heroic weapon to use based off Game of Thrones sword Longclaw but I'll be calling it Wolfclaw as a reference to the Fable III limited edition sword Wolfsbane._

_For the sword Balcrist's augments I've decided to give it the following; Combat Mastery, Devastation, Divine Favour, Divine Luck, Luck and Skill, Lucky Charm and Ghoul._

_That's all I've got to say for now, for now let's just enjoy the show._

_Now we begin;_

Sparrow, Sunny and Hammer walked up into the morning sunshine away from the Howling Halls.

"We made it!" Hammer said exuberantly, Sparrow smiled and nodded, enjoying the morning sunshine but her thoughts wandered to Hal who was still in the Howling Halls, following some voice in his head.

Hammer seemed to be thinking as she said "What about Lieutenant Spartan-something or other? Will he be alright?" she asked out loud.

Sparrow replied "He'll be alright, I've seen what he can do with a blade, it'll take more than a balverine to kill him" she said, but deep inside her mind she was worried about Hal, the fact he heard a voice in his head that no else could worried her and she hoped that Hal was alright.

"Oh look! The Crucible!" Hammer said pointing in the distance, Sparrow took a look where Hammer was pointing and saw what looked like a tower carved into a mountain/cliff face and Sparrow heard Theresa's voice in her head.

"_Many die in their attempt to defeat the Crucible, but those who do, have made a name for themselves in history"_ Theresa said before cutting off the feed.

Sparrow, Sunny and Hammer then heard a thudding of footsteps and turned to look behind them at the exit/entrance of the Howling Halls and prepared themselves for a fight with whatever was making its way to the surface.

Sparrow visibly relaxed as she saw that it was only Hal who was making his way to the exit and he was holding a new weapon in his hand.

"Spartan! You're alright" Hammer exclaimed, Hal's polarised visor looked at her and he replied "Course I'm alright, it'll take more than some overgrown fur-ball to kill me" he said.

"Where did you get the sword from?" Sparrow asked eyeing the weapon in Hal's hands; Hal looked at her and replied "That voice in my head led me to it, believe it or not" he said.

Hal held the sword flat in his hands and Sparrow inspected it; it was very well-made, it had the fang of some giant beast as a handle and the blade was a silvery colour and single edged and made for hacking and slashing opponents and there were words engraved on the flat of the blade _Balcrist the Balvorn Slicer_.

"Balcrist eh? I think I've heard of it" Hammer said, Hal looked at her as if to ask her to continue.

Hammer noticed Hal looking at her and explained "It's supposedly the weapon that was used to slay the Balvorn monster and made to slice apart balverines" Hammer explained.

"And what about these little stones here?" Hal asked, pointing to the little coloured stones on his new weapon.

Sparrow took over the explanation "They're called augment stones or just augments; they can enhance a weapon or imbue it with elemental properties such as fire or lightning, but there are augments that have benefits that come at a cost to the wielder such as draining the wielder's health or making them more likely to get scars" she said.

"Where can I buy augments? Or at least get a book on them?" Hal asked.

"You can buy augments from gypsy traders and I think you can find a book on augments in Bowerstone market last I heard" Hammer said.

"But right now we need to get into the Crucible, let's go!" Hammer added and turned and started to march off in the direction of the Westcliff gates with Sparrow, Hal and Sunny following.

In front of the wooden gates were two rough looking men wielding steel swords and were obviously duelling each other, perhaps they were contestants seeking to enter the Crucible.

The first of them noticed Sparrow and Co. walking up towards the gate and said to his companion loudly "'Ey Jacko! Look, some wee little pansies come to join the Crucible!" he cackled.

"Hold on, I think we've found the brains of this operation" Hammer said sarcastically, the two thugs looked at her and the one called Jacko said

"Who do ya think you're talking to?" he said scornfully.

Hal replied "The town drunks from the looks of it who think that they're the toughest in town" he said coldly.

"We are the toughest! We're tougher than some coward wearing fancy armour!" the unnamed thug said angrily, looking at Hal's armour scornfully.

"If you're the toughest; why haven't you entered the Crucible yet?" Hammer asked smartly, the two thugs didn't seem to have an answer and spluttered.

Sparrow spoke up "C'mon, let's leave these two 'tough guys' and enter the Crucible" she said and walking away with a smile on her face as the two thugs spluttered and snarled their scorn at Sparrow and Co.

Entering the town the group looked around; the so called 'town' was more of a rough looking camp than anything else with an open bar with thugs and bandits drinking away their sorrows or what not and there were a few stalls set up, ranging from a tattoo parlour to a weapons stall and even a small book store not that many of the townsfolk could read but ya never know.

Hal looked at the Crucible and said "What do you think we'll have to do get in?" he asked.

"Not sure, but we have to try won't we?" Sparrow said as they made their way up to the Crucible, passing many rough looking characters and even the odd highwayman/assassin practicing their skills.

Walking up the steps of the Crucible, the group came upon two individuals at the large iron doors of the arena; one was dressed in fine clothing and wearing spectacles and the other had the look of a battle scarred bandit with a cutlass over his shoulder and a blunderbuss gun holstered on his right hip.

The bandit said to Hal and co. before they went through "Hold it! Only authorised applicants can enter to compete in the Crucible" he said in a rough voice.

The finer dressed one than spoke in an eloquent showman's voice "Yes, only those who have made a name for themselves may enter the Crucible" he said.

The bandit then said "yeah, the people only come to see the famous ones fight in the Crucible, not a bunch of nobodies" he said as he eyed Sparrow and co.

"And who are you supposed to be then?" Hammer asked almost irritably.

"Me? I'm Mad-Dog 'The Strangler' McGraw" Mad-Dog said proudly.

"Yes, finest Crucible Champion in his day he was" his fellow said.

"'The Strangler'? Bit redundant innit?" Hammer asked.

"Whaddya mean?" Mad-Dog asked perplexed.

"Why add 'The Strangler' when you're already a mad dog? Seems a bit silly to me" Hammer said.

"Well, it's supposed to be intimidating innit?" Mad-Dog replied irritably.

Mad-Dog's friend intervened before any open hostilities broke out "Anyway, you have to do something that will make you famous if you wish to enter the Crucible, best of luck" he said cheerfully.

Mad-Dog then added "Yeah do summat that'll get you in, but I'm not letting your friend in, not after what she said" he growled glaring at Hammer who just glared back.

Hal gently pulled Hammer away and the group moved away from the Crucible entrance, Sparrow heard Theresa's voice speaking in her mind to both her and Hammer.

"_Well done Hammer, you've alienated the very people whose favour we need"_ Theresa's voice said smoothly yet with a hint of admonishment and reproval.

"I was just being honest" Hammer muttered sullenly "Right I'm gonna do something useful if I can't enter the Crucible, like find a pub" she muttered and went off in the direction of the outdoor pub.

Sparrow then heard Theresa's voice in her head again _"I have heard rumour of a farmer in need of help against bandits attacking his home in Brightwood, perhaps you and the Spartan can go and assist him"_ Theresa said, Sparrow nodded and turned to Hal and spoke to him.

"We need to do something that will make us more famous; I've just been told that there's a farmer who might need help against bandits in Brightwood" Sparrow said, Hal looked at her and nodded.

"Sure, but how are we gonna get there?" he asked.

"I guess the only option is to go through the Howling Halls to reach the other side" Sparrow replied, shrugging her shoulders.

Hal gave a sigh and said "Alright, but let's get some supplies first, I don't wanna run into any furry freaks while we're in there" he said, Sparrow nodded and the two separated to go buy supplies.

About three quarters of an hour later, Hal & Sparrow met up again and with a nod the two left the settlement of Westcliff and entered the Howling Halls.

_Inside the Howling Halls._

Surprisingly, Hal, Sparrow and Sunny the Dog didn't encounter any more balverines whilst silently making their way through the halls, which struck Hal and Sparrow as a little odd, maybe the balverines lost their nerve about fighting Spartans and Heroes.

_Exiting the Howling Halls_

Soon the trio were out of the Howling Halls and made their way quickly away from the ruins before any balverines showed up looking for a meal.

Quickly making their across the wilderness, the trio soon reached the road to the Bandit coast, hoping that the bandit encampment was still in ruins.

_The Bandit Coast_

Luckily for Sparrow and co. the bandit encampment was still in ruins and the group silently made their way crossing the encampment and made their way on the road, stopping only to eat some food from their packs and then quickly walked along the road, crossing over to the road to Brightwood.

_Brightwood_

It was now dusk by the time Sparrow and co. entered the forest of Brightwood; Sparrow closed her eyes for a moment, opened them and said to Hal "This way" she said and began to walk on the path leading upwards.

Hal and Sunny followed close behind, Sparrow followed the GPS in her head and soon came to a crossroad and took the left fork and walked along the road until they came to a small little farm and a small house, Hal heard a deep voice singing mournfully.

"Why do you lie there so still fair lady?" the voice sang mournfully with a gruff sounding sob at the end, whoever was the singer was obviously in mourning for a lost love.

Walking up to the front door of the little house, Sparrow knocked politely, the deep bass voice growled out "What?! If you've come back to taunt me again, you've got another thing comin'!"

The door was flung open to reveal a broad chested man wearing some farmer's clothes and a tri-corn hat and in his hands was a steel flintlock rifle and his expression was one of anger.

The man then realised that Sparrow, Hal and Sunny weren't enemies and he lowered the gun and said "Oh, what do you lot want then?" he asked.

Hal acted as the spokesperson of the trio "We heard you were having trouble with bandits and we came to see if we could help" he said politely.

"Oh right, my name's Giles and sorry about that, it's just…" Giles started weakly as he holstered his rifle.

"What happened?" Sparrow asked gently as they went inside the house and Giles sat down on a chair and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a drink into a glass and offered some to Sparrow and Hal, Sparrow politely took a drink while Hal declined.

Giles took a gulp and began "I used to be a town guard for thirty years of my life and I retired and I took my wife Jenny and son Rupert out here with me to start a new life" he said and then took another gulp of whiskey.

"Then this bandit called Ripper came along with his gang and demanded that I pay him some ridiculous tribute; I told him to go hang himself" Giles said.

"And they killed her; they came right back and killed my wife right in front of me! Can you even imagine what that's like?" Giles asked, Sparrow's eyes were full of empathy and sympathy as she gently took Giles's rough calloused hand in her own soft elegant one and gently held it.

Giles went on "I sent my son away until… until I've done what's need to be done; I know what Ripper is, he's a coward, a butcher!" he growled, his eyes full of hate at the mention of Ripper's name.

"Sir, I know what it's like to want vengeance but believe me, you do not want to go down that road" Hal said looking at Giles.

Giles looked at him and said "And you know something about vengeance do you?" he asked looking at Hal.

Hal replied "Yes, my family was killed in a war and when I was given the chance to fight back, I took it but all the killing I did, couldn't bring back my family and your wife wouldn't want you to kill for her sake" he said.

Giles deflated and said "You're right, she wouldn't have wanted this, could you go and take down Ripper's men for me and bring him back to me alive, I'll make sure he faces justice" he said raising his chin, his eyes were hard as granite and resolute.

Sparrow replied "Yes, we'll take down Ripper's gang and bring him to you alive" she said and she downed her whiskey in one go and got up from her chair and she then asked "Where can we find Ripper's gang?" she asked.

Giles replied "Over near Brightwood Tower, there's a gate near there where they've made their camp" he said, Sparrow nodded and with Hal and Sunny in tow they exited the house and made their way to where Giles had directed them.

Walking a fast pace the trio made their way out of the farm and out onto the path and as soon as they made it onto the path, a group of bandits dropped down in front of them.

The lead bandit spoke to Hal and co. "You've sided with that farmer, now you'll have to die like him!" he growled.

Sparrow drew her cutlass and Hal decided to put his new weapon to the test and drew it out and the bandits drew their weapons and charged en masse hoping to overwhelm Sparrow and co. with the weight of their numbers.

Sparrow let fly with balls of fire, giving the bandits pause for thought, Hal swung Balcrist, slicing into a bandit's stomach; the bandit's intestines spilled out of the gash and he shrieked in pain before Hal snuffed the life from him by decapitating him.

Sparrow weaved in and out of the bandits her cutlass spraying arcs of blood onto the ground and the bandits fell before her like wheat before the scythe.

Sunny helped by biting into the legs of the bandits, distracting them, allowing Sparrow and Hal to kill them.

Soon the bandits were lying on the ground dead and Hal and Sparrow sheathed their weapons and continued on towards Ripper's camp.

Making their way up a small path, the trio soon came across Ripper's camp; it was dirty and messy and there were a few cages for locking up slaves and an open fire in the middle of the camp.

There were bandits lounging around, drinking bottles of various alcoholic substances, one bandit stood up to stretch and noticed Sparrow, Hal and Sunny watching and he shouted "'Ey! Lads wake up! We've got visitors!" he shouted, this roused his fellow bandits who quickly tried to stand up as their drunken bodies would allow them and drew their rifles and pistols and began to take aim.

Hal drew his DMR and fired upon the bandits, going for headshots. Sparrow drew her clockwork rifle and began to pick off bandits who tried to get close.

A fire-fight ensued, bullets flew through the air, they flickered harmlessly against Hal's energy shields, Sparrow took cover behind a tree and returned fire when she could, and Sunny crouched down by her.

Hal shouldered his DMR and brought out Balcrist and moved forward to engage the bandits, Sparrow drew her cutlass and charged forward; the bandits drew their rusty blades and charged forward, eager to use their blades to inflict injury.

Hal roundhouse kicked three bandits, his metal shod foot breaking human skulls, killing the bandits, Sparrow sliced into the bandits and parried their clumsy attacks and Sunny bit and snapped at bandits.

Hal used his legendary blade and hacked into the bandits, they fell like wheat on harvest day before him.

Soon the bandits were all lying dead at Hal and Sparrow's feet, suddenly a voice sounded out from the tree tops.

"So, you two must be with that farmer Giles, he wasn't man enough to fight his own battles then? Well I can promise you this; after I finish killing the two of you, I'm goin' right up to that old coot and rip his brains out. Here I come! 1…! 2…! 3…!" the voice shouted.

Out from the tree tops dropped a burly looking bandit, he wore a mask on his face and banner on his back and attached to his left hand was a barbed hook that looked as though it could rip apart human flesh, hence the nickname Ripper.

Ripper then surprised Sparrow and Hal by summoning some magic and using supernatural speed to move across the clearing to them in an instant his longsword thrusting forward like a lance.

Hal was hit first by Ripper's attack, Hal just stood and let his energy shields take the brunt of the magically enhanced charge; Hal took a quick look to his energy shield meter, it had dropped down a fifth, so obviously this show of will magic channelled into an attack could do some real damage.

Sparrow dashed forward to Ripper who was surprised at how Hal withstood his attack and stamped on his foot.

Ripper gave a growl of pain as his foot was stomped on by the Sparrow and swung his longsword to clash with the female Hero's cutlass blade; sparks flew as their blades clashed against each other.

Hal brought out his rifle and aimed carefully, but after a few seconds Hal knew that Sparrow and Ripper were fighting too fast and furiously for him to get off a shot without risking Sparrow's life in the process.

Hal then stepped in and swung his fist at Ripper's knee, he aimed the blow to be light, only to slow Ripper down; the blow did as it was intended and Ripper cried out his pain as he felt the Spartan's fist collide with his knee and he fell to the ground on one knee, clutching it in pain.

Sparrow then aimed her cutlass at Ripper's throat and barked "Surrender now and you won't be hurt anymore!" she barked.

Ripper put his hands in surrender and he said "Alright, aright! Ya got me fair and square, just kill me and get it over with!" he growled as he clutched his heavily bruised knee.

Hal tilted his head to the side slightly and said "No. We're not killing you, you're gonna answer for your crimes" Hal said coldly.

Then suddenly Giles turned up and said "You've got him, good!" he said.

"Oh so it's you, you weren't man enough to do the job yerself eh? Well go on, take me to jail! I could use the holiday" Ripper said.

Giles looked at Ripper coldly and said "Jail? I don't think so!" he said and levelled his rifle at Ripper. Ripper's face took on a look of fear and surprise and he held his hands up.

"Wha?! You can't do this! Please adventurers, talk to him!" Ripper wailed as he looked at Hal and Sparrow pleading for his life.

"Sir, I know you wanna see this piece of filth dead, but killing him won't bring back Jenny and it will only make you as bad as him" Sparrow said gently, laying a gentle hand on Giles's arm.

Giles sighed, deflated and said "You're right Jenny wouldn't have wanted this, I'm taking you to Bowerstone Ripper, and I'll see you hang!" Giles said coldly, glaring at Ripper.

"Do you want us to come with you sir? In case Ripper tries anything?" Hal asked.

Giles looked at Hal in surprise and said "You'd do that? Why?" he asked.

"No offence but, you are an old man and Ripper may be a coward, but he's not stupid, He'll try something on you for sure" Hal replied.

Giles looked thoughtful and said "Well, I could use the help and it'd be nice to have some company with me on the road while I get Ripper to Bowerstone" he reasoned.

So tying Ripper's hands in some rope, Giles, Hal, Sparrow, Sunny the dog and Ripper the bandit made their way to Bowerstone, Ripper was muttering all the way, trying to think of ways to get out of his predicament and struggling with his bonds.

Keeping her rifle pointed at Ripper's back, Sparrow marched Ripper forward while Hal and Giles talked.

"So, where do you come from?" Giles asked the Spartan.

"A place that's far from here, I can tell you that much" Hal replied, Giles followed up with his next question.

"You got a name?" he asked.

"Lieutenant Spartan-B312, if that's anything to you" Hal replied.

"A lieutenant eh? Are you part of an army somewhere?" Giles asked.

"Not exactly" Hal said as they walked along the path with Sparrow marching Ripper along, giving him the occasional jab with her rifle to keep him moving.

"So how long have you and your friend been together?" Giles asked.

"Me and Sparrow? A while now, I came to this world through unknown means that even I don't know how and Sparrow found me and we've been with each other ever since" Hal replied, keeping an eye on Sparrow who was marching Ripper with her rifle pointed at his back.

"Do you like Sparrow?" Giles asked suddenly.

Hal was caught unawares by that question and he stumbled and said "W-what? Whaddya mean?" he asked, perplexed by the question.

Giles smiled a bit and replied "C'mon, even though I can't see your face, I can tell there's something going on between you and Sparrow, so I'll ask again; do you like her?" Giles asked.

Hal's shoulders slumped slightly and he sounded hesitant as he replied "I'm not sure, I get these strange yet somehow familiar thoughts about her in my head when I look at her and whenever other men look at Sparrow, I wanna protect her from them and tell them to back off, is that normal?" Hal asked.

Giles chuckled and said "Yep, you're in love" he chuckled.

"How do you know?" Hal asked.

"It was the same thing between me and Jenny, I had strange yet familiar thoughts about her whenever I looked at her and whenever other men looked at her, even innocently, I wanted to punch them in the face and tell them to leave her alone" Giles replied.

"So I'm in love?" Hal said.

"You got all the signs, only question is; is Sparrow interested in you as well?" Giles said.

"I… don't know" Hal said lamely.

"Don't worry, just test the waters first, she if she's interested in going out on a date with you and go from there, plenty of time to work it out" Giles said soothingly as they crossed over into the borders of Bower Lake.

_To be continued…_


	9. Chapter 9

Fable 2: Spartans Don't Die Chapter 9

The story so far: Having made it to the Region of Westcliff and finding they are not famous enough to enter the Crucible, Hal, Sparrow and Sunny came to the aid of the ex-town guard turned farmer Giles and defeating the bandits plaguing the farmer, Hal, Sunny and Sparrow are now assisting Giles in taking the bandit leader Ripper to Bowerstone to face justice.

Fan-mail;

Just a Question: it's all right mate, it was nice of you to send me the suggestion anyway but I just don't think I'll be able to do it justice and I have very little knowledge of Prototype. Yes I do plan on having Hal face the Crawler, after the events of Fable 2 and before Fable 3 but I won't have him kill the Crawler as Theresa will appear to him and tell him that it is not his destiny to defeat the Crawler but his daughter's destiny, the Princess whom I've decided to either look like Victoria's Secret Angel Erin Heatherton or her fellow Angel Lindsay Ellingson or maybe even Victoria's Secret PINK supermodel Elsa Hosk, I'm thinking Elsa Hosk would be the better choice because I have a major crush on her and even made a YouTube video asking her or one of her fellow VS models to be my first kiss, kinda embarrassing for me now that I think about it. But yes I will plan on having Hal face the Crawler but not kill it as its Princess Elsa's destiny to defeat the Crawler.

Mcknight93: good to hear from you mate, I was wondering where you got to. I do plan on progressing the Hal/Sparrow relationship a bit further, maybe after the Max and Sam quest, I can have Hal ask Sparrow out on a date and it goes well, with Sparrow and Hal having their first kiss with each other, which will be all sorts of banana pancakes awesome and it'll be the beginning of something beautiful between them. Yeah, I could've written the travelling part a bit better but I was stalling for ideas and I wrote that so sorry about that. By the way, do you happen to know anyone who I could commission to draw a picture of Hal and Sparrow standing side by side, holding hands for little to no monetary expense? Just wanted to throw that idea out there.

Anyways, that's all the fan-mail I'll address for now, so let's get this show on the road.

Also I've decided to put in an idea for another sword Six can have, it'll be based on two weapons, one from Fable and the other from Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. In the first Fable game there was a greatsword called the Solus greatsword that belonged to an order of dragon knights and I decided what if there was a longsword to go with it and the Dark Messiah sword is a weapon called the sword of the dragon claw and that's where the idea came from; I've decided to call Six's new weapon the Solus Dragonclaw longsword and I've decided to make it look like a Skyrim silver sword but with red leather handle, gold pommel and cross-hilt and silvery white blade with a dragon engraved on both sides of the blade.

Anyway that's just an idea I have in mind but for now let's get on with the show.

Now we begin;

As the group crossed over to the boundaries of Bower Lake it was now starting to darken and the group made their way to Bowerstone.

_In Bowerstone…_

Giles, Sparrow, Hal and Sunny with Ripper in tow, reached the gate of Bowerstone; as soon as they entered the borders of Bowerstone, a town guard on the wall on duty, saw Giles and shouted "Giles?! Is that you?" he shouted.

Giles looked up and shouted back "Matthew! I thought I recognised you! Still missing the practice target?" he asked.

"Oh go on with ya, what are ya doing back here? I thought you retired?" Matthew asked.

"I still am, I've just got some 'cargo' to deliver, one for the hangman" Giles replied.

"Ah, Ripper isn't it? I thought I recognised his mug from here, bring him in!" Matthew shouted and disappeared from the wall.

Sparrow gave Ripper a jab in the back with her rifle to make him move forward and Giles, Hal and Sunny followed. Entering the town, Matthew appeared from the guardhouse with some other burly looking guards and spoke "Well, Giles, I never thought you went into the bounty hunting business and who are yer friends?" Matthew asked, looking at Hal, Sparrow and Sunny.

"I haven't gotten into the bounty hunter's game, this bastard right here, killed my wife" Giles said, shooting Ripper a nasty glare who returned the glare with a sneer.

"I heard about that" Matthew replied sadly "We were going to send some of our fellas to help you out, but that bloody poncy mayor Thomas Forthright forbade it" he added darkly and the other town guards muttered darkly.

Giles waved Matthew's words, saying "It's alright, these two here" gesturing to Sparrow and Hal "Came and helped me bring Ripper to justice, we're hoping Ripper will get a short drop and a sudden stop" Giles said coldly.

"Don't worry; we'll make damn sure of it!" Matthew said with finality in his voice "Take him away!" Matthew ordered, two town guards stepped forward and grasped Ripper by the arms and took him inside the guard house.

Giles turned to Hal and Sparrow and said "Well, thank you for helping me bring Ripper to Bowerstone, it was nice to have some company on the road" he said, giving Hal and Sparrow a grateful smile.

"Our pleasure" Sparrow murmured politely and gave Giles a brilliant smile, Hal couldn't help but take a moment to observe Sparrow's smile; she could really light up the night with that smile.

"Can we offer you a drink, now that we're here" Sparrow said, gesturing towards the Cow and Corset inn over the bridge.

"I don't want to impose" Giles said.

"It's no trouble at all, sir, and it'll give you a good chance to collect your son Rupert in the morning" Hal said.

"Well, only if I can buy you two a drink as well" Giles replied.

"Okay" Sparrow and Hal said at the same time, before looking at each other; Sparrow couldn't help but smile and behind his helmet, Hal smiled too which he was sure made Sparrow smile even more.

So the three with Sunny the dog in tow walked over to the Cow and Corset inn and took a nearby table.

A barmaid came over and took their orders, which was a round of Bowerstone brown beer.

Soon their orders came and they simultaneously opened their beers and began to drink.

Giles took note of how Hal was standing up rather than sitting down on a perfectly good chair.

"Here, why aren't you sitting down with us?" Giles asked.

"My armour and I happen to weigh a ton or so, so I'll just break the chair if I sit on it" Hal explained as he took his helmet off; with a hiss and snap, Hal set his MJOLNIR helmet down on the table and began to drink his beer.

Giles gaped slightly and replied "You must be very strong to be able to walk around in that armour" he said as he took a sip of his beer.

"It's a Spartan augmentation, tell you more someday" Hal said as he took a sip of his beer.

"We've got the time, so why don't you tell us?" Sparrow asked as she took a gulp of her beer.

"It's… not really… a nice story" Hal said uncertainly.

"I've heard worse things" Giles replied.

"It can't be any worse than my sister being shot in front of me" Sparrow said as she looked at Hal.

Hal gave a sigh and said "Alright, but I warn you, everything about it will be very unethical and immoral bordering on amoral and violent and gruesome" he said.

"Well we've got the time, so go ahead" Giles said.

Hal gave a sigh and prepared himself for the headache that was about to come after he told Sparrow and Giles his story.

And so Hal began to tell the Hero and the ex-town guard of his life, the UNSC, the Covenant and the Spartan Program; the looks of wonder in Giles and Sparrow's eyes as they were told of how Hal's humanity found a way to explore the stars with a machine that could allow them to traverse light-years in an instant all thanks to two determined scientists.

Then came the horror in their eyes of how the Covenant came and began to exterminate humanity, killing men, women, and children and leaving worlds nothing but molten glass and ash. Giles and Sparrow were disgusted at how Hal lost his family and then came the headache part.

Hal explained of how he was given a chance to fight back by joining the Spartan III Program and when he finished his training, Lieutenant Junior Grade Kurt Ambrose and Chief Petty Officer Mendez approached Hal to give him the chance of being a true Spartan.

The looks of horror that passed in Sparrow's eyes of the full augmentation procedures that were performed on Hal, leaving him in recovery for weeks and she gently reached out with her free hand and touched Hal's empty hand and squeezed gently.

Hal almost flinched but relaxed, an action that was not lost on Giles as he smirked a little but his expression hardened as he remembered at how this Dr Halsey allowed children to be kidnapped to be brutally trained and treated like animals, all for the sake of survival.

"But how could the public let your government kidnap innocent children?" Giles asked angrily.

Hal replied "The UNSC was desperate and they had little choice and the public for the most part had no idea that the Spartan IIs were children and they themselves were replaced by flash clones, perfect physical and mental copies that would soon expire of physical ailments. And the Spartan IIIs, me, were all orphans thanks to the Covenant" Hal explained.

"But to use children…" Sparrow muttered, clearly upset at how Hal's family and chance at a normal life was taken from him, like hers, and she silently told herself in her mind that she was going to do what it takes to give Hal the family that was taken from him.

Something that made her feel warm inside as an image of Hal, herself and two little children that looked like her and Hal running around them on a little farm with a white picket fence and the memory of seeing Hal in his underwear crossed her mind which made her blush a little at the thought of the memory.

And the three drank their beers in silence.

"So what are you two gonna do while you're here in Bowerstone?" Giles asked suddenly.

"Not sure, we're trying to enter the Crucible so we're going around trying to find ways of earning renown" Sparrow replied as she finished her bottle and called for another bottle.

Giles looked thoughtful and said "I've heard of two brothers who've supposedly awoken some hollow men in the Bowerstone Cemetery, maybe that'll help make you more famous" he suggested.

"Hollow men. They're the walking dead inhabited by wisps, right?" Hal asked looking at Sparrow and Giles, they both nodded and confirmed Hal's question.

"Well, looks like it's time for some good old fashioned zombie slaying" Hal said and with that said, he finished off the last of his beer and waited for Sparrow to finish hers off.

Sparrow quickly finished off her beer and they both went up to the barman and paid for their drinks and gave Giles a line of credit which Giles insisted he didn't need but after a little pressure, he accepted.

Sparrow whistled for Sunny to follow her and Hal down to the Old Quarter which led the way to the Bowerstone Cemetery.

_Bowerstone Old Quarter._

Making their way into the Old Quarter, Sparrow led the way, going along the pathway intended for Rookridge/Oakfield road.

Making their way down the steps, the trio found two young men who looked as though they might be twins and wore similar attire, save one brother had a pony tail and the other twin was bald.

And they were both arguing.

"This is all your fault y'know!" the one with the pony tail accused his bald twin.

"My fault!? You're the one who started reading from the book!" his twin argued.

"Only because you dared me to!" the other twin countered, folding his arms defensively.

"Well you shouldn't have listened to me!" the twin with the pony tail yelled then he noticed Hal, Sparrow and Sunny standing there watching them.

"Oh hello there, listen… if you've got the time, could you help me and Sam with a 'little' problem?" the young man asked hesitantly.

"Spit it out, what did ya do?" Sparrow asked, her voice brokering no argument or tomfoolery.

Sam then spoke "Well, me and Max found this book, the Normanomicon, the Book of the Really, Really Dead" he started to explain, Max then took over "Yeah and we started reading from it and we may have accidentally summoned a couple of hollow men" he said guiltily.

"Define a 'couple'" Hal said.

"A… hundred" Sam gulped nervously, Sparrow gave a sigh and muttered darkly under her breath.

"Anyway, when the hollow men came, we ran for it but we forgot the book and it's in the Cemetery, we need the book in order to reverse the spell" Max said.

"Alright, we'll get this stupid book and you two better be here when we get back, otherwise there'll be trouble" Hal threatened and with that said, he, Sparrow and Sunny moved past the brothers and walked into the cemetery grounds.

_Bowerstone Cemetery._

There was an unnatural fog that lay over the cemetery grounds as Sparrow and co. entered the grounds.

As the trio walked down the hill, a few people ran past them, one of them screamed a warning "Ahhh! The dead walk! It's the end of the world!" the villager screamed as he and some other villagers ran past Sparrow and co.

Hal unclipped his assault rifle from his back and flicked off the safety and Sparrow drew her cutlass from her back.

Walking down the hill, further into the cemetery, the fog thickened and wisps flew out of the fog and dove into the ground springing up hollow men.

Hal aimed his rifle at the shuffling group of hollow men and squeezed the trigger, the slugs breaking apart the brittle bones of the hollow men. Sparrow set to work by hacking into the hollow men with her cutlass; the rags and bones of the zombies were hacked and sliced apart by Sparrow's cutlass and soon the first group of hollow men had fallen.

Sparrow then got a feeling in her head's inbuilt GPS that these hollow men were on the first twenty-five hollow men.

"C'mon, we have to get rid of all the hollow men before we can get to the book!" Sparrow said urgently and she set off down the pathway with Hal and Sunny following after her.

Soon the trio reached the main area of the Cemetery where the fog was at its thickest, a real pea souper that Sparrow and Hal couldn't see more than a couple of meters in front of them.

Hal could hear the shuffling and rattling moans of the hollow men and the wisps diving into the ground bringing forth more hollow men.

Soon Sparrow caught sight of the first wave of hollow men awkwardly running towards her, Hal and Sunny; Sparrow retaliated by drawing her rifle and shooting the first hollow man in the head, blowing it clean off, amazingly in a morbid way the now headless hollow men kept moving forward but was staggering around as it tried to find its prey.

Hal drew Balcrist and started to lay into the hollow men as they came forward, Balcrist's blade shone a silver colour and hollow men were destroyed in one stroke by Balcrist if it touched them.

More hollow men appeared out of the fog and Sparrow weaved an inferno spell, the hollow men sensed what Sparrow was doing and started to swarm around her like maggots swarming over fresh meat.

Hal hacked and slashed for all he was worth against the converged horde of hollow men and Sunny snapped and bit at the bony legs of the zombies. Sparrow finally released the inferno spell caused a great ring of flame to burst around her and the hollow men caught in the blast were incinerated to a pile of ash but those that did survive which not many did met the business end of Hal's sword.

Soon the fog that lay over the Cemetery lifted and revealed the dawn sky, Sparrow stood and got the feeling in her where the book was and she followed her GPS with Hal and Sunny following behind her.

Walking up a few stairs, the trio found a small mausoleum where a book lay on a pedestal; the book looked as though it was bound in human skin which was evident as the front cover of the book looked like a grotesque parody of a human face.

Sparrow marched into the mausoleum and snatched the book from the pedestal and nothing untoward happened and the trio then left the Cemetery to meet up with Max and Sam.

_Outside Bowerstone cemetery, Old Town._

Hal and co. soon found the twin brother waiting for them.

"Did you get it?!" Max asked quickly.

Sparrow handed the Normanomicon to Sam who flicked through the pages and found the incantation to reverse the curse.

Sam then chanted some strangely ridiculous words and Max at the end then shouted "Mukluk! Wait, what?"

Seeing the fog layer hanging over the Cemetery had was now gone for good, Max and Sam thanked the two Heroes and left, but not before Hal made them promise not to experiment with the book again.

Sparrow dusted her hands off and heard Theresa's voice whispering in her head _"You've almost done it, a few people are whispering of your deeds but it's not quite enough"_ she said.

Hal then got a thought in his head; he remembered what happened with Giles's wife Jenny and Giles's advice about testing the water and he looked at Sparrow wondering.

"_Have I really come to truly care for Sparrow? Granted we're both from completely different worlds but that's just a minor detail and we both have a thing for sharp pointy objects so that's a plus, maybe we're not so different after all"_ Hal thought.

"Sparrow?" Hal asked, Sparrow turned to look at him and smiled her beautiful smile.

"Yes?" she asked in her gypsy accented voice.

Hal's mouth went curiously dry and thought _"Oh, here we go"_ he thought.

"Do you… think we could… say… have breakfast together this morning? Somewhere nice and quiet, just us" Hal said hesitantly as he watched for Sparrow's reaction.

Sparrow's beautiful smile grew wider and she said "I'd love to" she said gently.

Hal inwardly breathed a sigh of relief and then said "Any idea where you want to go?" he asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me that" Sparrow replied.

"Oh. Right… umm… I hadn't actually thought of that" Hal said lamely.

"Why don't we go to Bowerstone North?" Sparrow suggested "I've never been there before and I'd like to see what the so called nobles get up to in there" Sparrow said.

"Okay, Bowerstone North it is, let's go" Hal said, Sparrow smiled again and she fell into step with the Spartan and they both began to head… well… north towards Bowerstone North or as it was known among the common folk, the Noble Quarter.

_Soon afterwards in Bowerstone North/Noble Quarter…_

After being let through by the town guards of the Noble Quarter who better dressed and equipped than their regular comrades, Hal, Sparrow and Sunny the dog entered the Noble Quarter.

Everything in Bowerstone North was very much different to the rest of Bowerstone; everything here looked better kept and maintained, the people (noblemen/women) were dressed in a little more noble fashion and looked better fed and the stalls had higher quality items, though there was no blacksmith in sight there was a weapons stall on a corner, selling what claimed to be master forged weapons.

Sparrow was entranced by the sight of Bowerstone North and was agog at everything, Hal and Sunny were beside her, Hal wasn't terribly interested in anything and Sunny was a dog, he didn't care either way.

But the people around were a bit unbearable, as nobles they looked down on commoners and adventurers, it seemed, were just as common and the nobles turned their noses up at Sparrow and Hal and their dog and a few noblewomen muttered something about the choice Sparrow had in clothes.

Sparrow ignored their comments and continued to look around the Noble Quarter, agog at everything that was on display and Hal was doing his best to act interested.

But soon they came up to a stall that was seeling augment stones; the trader was a gypsy and he was dressed well.

The trader looked up from his wares and asked "Yes? What can Malik the Trader do for you today?" he asked in accented voice.

"I was wondering if you had a book on augment stones that I could buy" Hal asked.

The trader smiled and brought out a leather bound book and replied "Indeed, this is my last copy of a book explaining augments and their properties; it's yours for the price of thirty-nine gold crowns" the trader said with a toothy smile.

"I'll take it" Hal said forking over the gold and Malik the trader handed over the book graciously and put the money in his purse.

Hal began to read through the book on augments and then asked the trader "What augments do you have available?" he asked.

Malik smiled and brought out a wooden tray holding a variety of coloured crystalline stones and answered

"I have a two Ghoul augment stones, one Barkskin augment, one Combat Mastery augment, three Devastation augments, two Luck & Skill augments, one Flame augment, two Golden Touch augments, one Lucky Charm augment, and one Killerwatt augment" Malik said pointing to each of the augments in turn.

"How many augments can a weapon hold?" Sparrow asked.

"Let me see your weapons first and I'll tell you" Malik said.

Sparrow brought out her Iron clockwork rifle and her steel cutlass and Hal brought out his cache of weapons; his assault rifle, his DMR rifle, his combat knife, his kukri knife, his Covenant energy sword and his katana as well as Balcrist.

Malik was surprised by the weapons Hal had but didn't say anything and he examined their weapons.

"Hmm… the young lady's weapons would hold two each at best but your weapons my armoured friend… I have not seen their likes anywhere in this world, they are so well crafted I think they would hold two or three at best, where are you from my friend?" Malik asked.

"Someplace far from here, I can tell you that much" Hal replied.

"Hmm… interesting; now do you seek to make a purchase?" Malik then asked.

Hal then bought nearly all of Malik's stock, severely depleting him of money and he even bought Sparrow augments for her weapons as well, even though she insisted that she could pay for them but Hal said that it was their first date and he would pay for the augments.

Sparrow sighed and acquiesced and smiled at Hal as he bought the augments.

Then came the decision about what augments to attach to which weapons; Sparrow attached a Golden Touch augment and a Luck & Skill augment to her cutlass and a Ghoul augment to her rifle. Hal attached a Devastation augment; a Killerwatt augment and Combat Mastery augment to his energy sword, a Flame augment and a Barkskin augment to his combat knife, a Ghoul augment and Lucky Charm augment to his kukri knife, Hal then attached a Devastation augment to each of his guns and attached a Luck and Skill augment and Golden Touch augment to his katana.

After making their purchases, Sparrow and Hal left the trader's stall to see what other sights Bowerstone North had to offer.

Soon Hal and Sparrow heard music not far off, Sparrow gave a gasp of delight; it was music she was familiar with when she was living in the Bower lake Gypsy camp and what she had danced to many times.

Making their way through the crowd, Sparrow then saw a gypsy bard playing on a lute in front of a crowd; a few of the people in the crowd were tapping their feet and bobbing their heads in time with the music.

Sparrow smiled happily, her quest for revenge forgotten and the music was lively and happy; in fact, the music made Sparrow want to dance.

Hal noticed Sparrow's happy expression and he got a weird idea in his head and he asked her "Sparrow? Do you…? I mean… would you like to dance… with… me?" he asked awkwardly.

Sparrow's smile couldn't have gotten any more beautiful and she grabbed Hal's gauntleted hand and pulled him in front of the crowd and they danced on the spot.

Hal had done many things, from making Insurrectionist militia groups 'disappear' to rescuing kittens from trees but dancing was not on Hal's CV so he was very careful that his metal encased feet did not tread on Sparrow's feet but Sparrow seemed to be enjoying herself.

Hal twirled Sparrow and stepped in time with her, he couldn't help noticed how much Sparrow's admirable hips and buttocks swayed and gyrated as they danced; soon Sparrow had her back against Hal's chest and her buttocks pressed firmly against his groin.

Hal could feel himself become aroused as he danced with Sparrow, both of them uncaring for the crowd watching, Sparrow could feel her core heat up and her thoughts were heading in… an interesting direction to say the least as she danced with the Spartan supersoldier.

Soon the bard's tune was ending and Sparrow and her Spartan were entwined in each other's arms, gazing at each other.

Suddenly one of the members of the crowd shouted "Go on! Kiss her already!" the random member of the crowd shouted.

This had sparked other members of the crowd into shouting cries of encouragement for Hal to kiss Sparrow'

"KISS! KISS! KISS! KISS!" the people of the crowd chanted loudly, their arms pumping the air.

Sparrow smiled shyly and looked at Hal expectantly; Hal wondered if he could really kiss Sparrow, he didn't know much about dates but he thought that the first date was strictly a handshake.

Throwing caution to the wind, Hal took off his helmet and leaned into give Sparrow a peck on the lips.

What Hal didn't expect was for Sparrow to wrap her arms around his neck and turn the peck on the lips into a long hot deep kiss for both of them.

"Mmmfff…?" Hal mumbled as Sparrow kissed him deeply.

"Mmm…" Sparrow moaned as she kissed a man for the first time in her life, her eyes fluttering shut as she kissed a man for the first time in her life.

Hal soon lost all conscious thought and wrapped his hands around Sparrow's curvy waist and kissed Sparrow back.

The tasting and nibbling lasted for some time before both the Hero and Spartan had to come up for air.

Both of them broke off the kiss whilst still holding onto each other, both of them breathless as though they had run a marathon non-stop.

The crowd had been silent until one man cheered and soon the rest of the crowd applauded and cheered as well.

Sparrow and Hal took notice of the crowd; Sparrow smiled, giggling and gave a curtsy while Hal blushed and put his helmet back on to hide his expression which he was sure that Sparrow would no doubt figure out what it would be.

Sparrow, Sunny and Hal then left the crowd to find a food stall to get their morning breakfast.

_To be continued…_

A/N: well that took a while but I hope everyone is satisfied with this chapter and I hope you all leave a good review as it took me a while to come up with material for this story. Just want to say a couple of things and let you know my movements for this story and previous stories and upcoming future stories.

The next couple of chapters we'll see Sparrow and Hal get some breakfast into them and take up a bounty hunting task to earn some gold and travel to Oakfield to deal with the Temple of Shadows trying to poison the Wellspring of Light and in the process earn some renown.

Also gotten an idea in my head; what if I continued this story on into the Game of Thrones universe after the Princess/Hero of Brightwall defeats the Crawler? The idea came to me from fellow fanfic author Freedom Guard who plans on continuing his Halo/Fable story into the Game of Thrones universe where after defeating the Cabal (the bad guys in Freedom's story) and having a few dozen kids with his wives, John comes into contact with Westeros and King Robert Baratheon and becomes involved in the Game of Thrones. Freedom's already written me a few scenes of how he would do it which I am tempted to show you but where's the fun in that?

Other stories I'll try to update will be some of my other Halo crossovers such as my Marvel/Halo crossover.

Future stories will be an upcoming Skyrim/Marvel comics story where the Dragonborn and Odahviing end up in the Marvel universe and after a clash with HYDRA or AIM or Doc Doom, Odahviing and the Dovahkiin join the Avengers. In regards to this story, I have set up a poll showing romantic potentials for the Dragonborn who I've decided to make a Nord and look like British actor Richard Armitage when he played Thorin Oakenshield in the Hobbit movie; so far Amora the Enchantress has taken the lead but I'm hoping for either Betsy Braddock/Psylocke or Carol Danvers/Ms Marvel/Warbird/Captain Marvel to take the lead in becoming the Dragonborn's girlfriend/wife/lover.

Another future story will be a Skyrim/Lord of the Rings story where my Femme werewolf Dragonborn ends up in Middle-Earth and joins the Fellowship of the Ring. This femme Dovahkiin will look like a supermodel of my choice but if any of you have suggestions I would be glad to hear them.

Another story I plan to write will be a major multiple crossover taken off the story Evil from the Past, written by Laiqualaurelote who some of you may know, if you don't then that's your loss as that particular story she wrote was a pretty good one. Sadly she doesn't write stories anymore since 2008 and I doubt she'll see the story I have planned that will be based on hers. This story will involve Artemis Fowle, Butler, Holly Short, Julius Root and Foaly from the Artemis Fowle series, Gabriel Van Helsing, Anna Valerious, the Brides, Frankenstein's Monster, Carl, Velkan, Igor and Dracula from Stephen Sommers' Van Helsing, Jack Sparrow, Gibbs and Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series, Rick O'Connell, Evy, Alex, Ardeth Bay and Imhotep from Stephen Sommers' The Mummy, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Eowyn and Faramir from Lord of the Rings and a few others such as maybe Jon Snow from Game of Thrones to add a bit of punch to the story and to make it different from Laiqualaurelote's story

Anyway, that's all I've got for now, so stay tuned and stay gold people.

Peace out!

Angry lil' elf…


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